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THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

*** 

BY 
HOWARD ROBINSON, Ph.D. 

Professor of History, Carleton College 

UNDEK THE EDITORSHIP OF 

JAMES T. SHOTWELL, Ph.D. 

Professor of History in Columbia University 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO 

Cfje &foerstbe $tees Camiribgc 



Ut\ lb 



COPYRIGHT, 1922 

BY HOWARD ROBINSON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 

OCT 21 ,2 

©C1A686418 



TO 

MY PARENTS 



EDITOR'S FOREWORD 

Few of the great themes of history have a more compelling 
interest than that which is the subject of this book, for it 
includes almost every kind of appeal to the student or reader. 
There is romance in the beginning, in the story of discovery 
and exploration, of those who sailed with Drake or Raleigh 
or followed the track of Portuguese caravels to India. Even 
the homely narrative of obscure settlements carries on that 
great adventure which lends an epic quality to what might 
otherwise at first seem insignificant in itself, however impor- 
tant its subsequent effects upon national institutions. The 
culmination of this heroic theme is reached with Wolfe and 
Clive. Then come other considerations not less interesting 
to the English-speaking peoples, problems of colonial gov- 
ernment, experiments reaching all the way from repression 
in America through revolution on the Atlantic seaboard and 
rebellion in Canada to liberty and democracy in self-govern- 
ing Dominions and finally to mandated territories held un- 
der contract with the League of Nations. The economics of 
world-empire, with its diverse and mutually conflicting claims 
and systems, is a subject hardly less vast than that of its po- 
litical structure, and one almost as important to America as 
to Great Britain itself. The peculiar problems of Egypt and 
India and of the growth of nationalism in other parts of the 
empire is a matter of too recent public discussion to call for 
further comment here. 

A history of the Development of the British Empire writ- 
ten by an American historian who can survey the process 
with detachment and whose well-turned narrative rests upon 
adequate research needs no word of editorial commendation 
or apology. Professor Ptobinson's volume will be its own jus- 
tification. 

J. T. Shotwell 



PREFACE 

Interest in the British Empire, its growth, its organization-, 
and its possibilities, needs no apology. The present volume 
is an attempt to describe, from a detached point of view, the 
story of the growth of Greater Britain. Especial emphasis 
has been placed on the momentous development of the last 
one hundred years, a century that has witnessed an extraor^ 
dinary growth in the oversea Empire. Although the results 
of the World War are not as yet fully realized, yet it has been 
thought wise to relate to the previous evolution of the Em- 
pire the diverse changes and increasing complexities that 
have resulted from British participation in the war that be- 
gan in 1914. 

It will be taken for granted, it is hoped, that this account 
of British expansion is not intended as an exhaustive study, 
but as an introduction to a part of modern history that has 
received altogether too little emphasis in the past in Ameri- 
can schools and colleges. In accordance with this purpose, 
bibliographies have been appended to the chapters. They 
refer, it is believed, to the best selection of available books 
for further reading, although they do not pretend to include 
all the important works on British imperial growth. Biblio- 
graphical data have been added in order that the titles may 
be more than names, and may lead to an acquaintance with 
the volumes themselves. 

The combination of geographical and historical interests 
can nowhere be better formed than in the study of British 
expansion. Maps of especial importance are to be found in 
the volume. No book, however, can contain too many maps; 
the constant use of additional maps cannot be too strongly 
recommended. Care has been taken in the volume to make 
concrete references to geographical facts, with stress on those 
details only of which a definite knowledge is necessary for 
the understanding of the historical development. If it is an 



viii PREFACE 

excellent intellectual habit never to pass a word in reading 
without an exact knowledge of its meaning, it is even more 
important to follow the same rule with regard to the location 
of geographical references. By so doing, one can appreciate 
the enlarging scope of Britain where, as Conrad has put it, 
"men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak." 

Something should be said regarding terminology. The use 
of the word " American' ' in referring to the United States of 
America only — a usage to which Canadians sometimes ob- 
ject — seems inevitable. There is no word to substitute for 
it. It has been in common use with this meaning ever since 
1783; the references by British writers to the United States, 
in the years following the American Revolution, are usually 
to the "united states of America." A second source of con- 
fusion is the indiscriminate use of "England" and "Great 
Britain." For a time the formation of the British Empire 
was almost exclusively the expansion of England, but after 
the organic union with Scotland it became British expansion, 
and the accomplishments of the Empire are rightly those of 
Great Britain. In the third place, there is no good word or 
phrase to describe the group of self-governing units, Crown 
Colonies, Chartered Companies, Mandates, and spheres of 
influence, which have come to form Greater Britain. "Em- 
pire" is inaccurate, for the great self-governing Dominions 
are not under absolute control in the political sense; "Do- 
minion" has much the same fault, whereas "British Com- 
monwealth" errs in the other direction. In the use of the 
current appellations for Greater Britain, it should be under- 
stood that the British Empire is, politically and socially, 
something "new under the sun." 

I desire to express my obligations to many friends who 
have aided me with their learning and counsel. Former 
colleagues, Professor Henry R. Mueller, of Muhlenberg Col- 
lege, and Professor H. H. Carter, of Indiana University, have 
given the manuscript the benefit of careful reading. Pro- 
fessor Walter M. Patton, of Carleton College, has assisted 
and encouraged me in many ways, and has read several of the 
chapters. I am grateful to Professor Charles M. Andrews, 



PREFACE ix 

of Yale University, for making many helpful suggestions as 
a result of a careful reading of the text in manuscript, and I 
gladly acknowledge a similar indebtedness to Ramsay Muir, 
Professor of Modern History in the University of Manches- 
ter from 1913 to 1921. Professor James T. Shotwell, whom 
I am so fortunate as to count among my teachers, has read 
the text in manuscript, has made many wise suggestions, and 
has contributed greatly, by his editorship, to whatever value 
the volume may possess. I only am responsible for the in- 
terpretation of British imperial development as well as for 
any errors that may have escaped detection. Lastly, I am 
much indebted to my wife without whose interest and co- 
operation the task might well have wanted completion. 

Howard Robinson 

NORTHFIELD, MINNESOTA 

July, 1922 



CONTENTS 

Editor's Foreword v 

Preface vii 

I. The Preparation for Empire 1 

II. The' Commercial Revolution 10 

Trade in the Middle Ages — English commercial expansion — 

The Far East — The new West 

III. The Foundation for Empire 22 

The Spanish Empire — Henry VIII and Elizabeth — The 
Elizabethan seamen 

IV. The Beginnings of Empire in the West 35 

The Stuarts — Jamestown — New England — Newf oundland 
and Hudson Bay — The West Indies — The buccaneers 

V. The Commercial Rivalry of England and Holland 56 

The Dutch and the Far East — The English East India Com- 
pany — Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the West — English North 
America x 

VI. The Duel with France 74 

France in America and India — The duel in America — The 
Peace of Utrecht — The Seven Years' War — Ancient India 

— The duel in India — The Peace of Paris 

VII. The Old Colonial System 98 

^ Mercantilism — Navigation Acts — ■ Colonial administration 

— The administration of India 

VIII. The Revolt of the American Colonies 115 

Causes for rebellion — The approach of war — The war 
IX. The Industrial Revolution 131 

Mercantilism attacked — The textile industry — The steam 
engine — The aftermath of revolution 

X. The British Empire and Napoleon 146 

A world war — The continental system — The fruits of Brit- 
ish victory 

XI. A New Colonial Interest 160 

The nadir of empire — Beginnings of a new interest— Edward 
Gibbon Wakefield — Systematic colonization 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



XII. 



XIII. 



The Spread op British Power in India , 177 

Lord Clive — Warren Hastings — Lord Cornwallis — Lord 
Wellesley — The Marquess of Hastings 



The Completion of British Dominion in India 

Bentinck and reform — Lord Auckland and the northwest 
Lord Dalhousie — The Mutiny 



194 



XIV. The Growth op Canada 1760-1867 212 

Quebec — Canada and the American Revolution — Upper 
and Lower Canada — Responsible government — Confedera-* 
tion 



\ 



XV. The Establishment of Empire in Australasia 235 

The finding of the continent — New South Wales — Tasma-, 
nia — Victoria and Queensland — Western Australia — South 
Australia — The gold rush — New Zealand 

XVI. The Establishment of Empire in South Africa 259 

Cape Town — The natives — The British occupation — The 
Great Trek — Cape Colony 

XVII. Imperial Interests of the Victorian Age 279 

The British monopoly — Rival empires — A new interest 

XVIII. Modern India 

Foreign policy — The Empire of India — Nationalism and 
reform — The life of the people 



301 



XIX. The Highway to the East 

The route around Africa — Malavsia — Borneo 



320 



China 



XX. The Suez Canal and Egypt 337 

The Mediterranean — The British occupation of Egypt — 
The Sudan — Modern Egypt 

XXI. The Union of South Africa 357 

Continued racial friction — British expansion — The ap- 
proach of war — The South African War — The Union of 
South Africa 



"^ XXII. Modern Australasia 

Maori troubles in New Zealand — New Zealand unification — 
Recent progress in New Zealand — Australian self-govern- 
ment — The exploration of the interior — The growth of de- 
mocracy — The Commonwealth of Australia — The Pacific 
islands 



376 



CONTENTS xiii 

XXIII. British North America — Canada and Newfoundland 401 

Canadian confederation — The unification of the Dominion — 
Conservative and Liberal — Provincial problems — The Can- 
ada of to-day — Canada and the United States — Newfound- 
land 

XXIV. The Imperial Organization at the Opening of the 
Twentieth Century 428 

The growth of Greater Britain — The government of the Em- 
pire — Colonial Conferences 

XXV. The Empire and the World War 448 

Military achievements — An enlarged Empire — Dominion 
politics — Unrest — Ireland — Constitutional growth 

A.PPENDIX 

Statistical Summary i 

Diagram of Approximate Political Relations with- 
in the Empire ii 
Diagram showing Distribution and Relative Size of 
Populations within the Empire iv 

Index vii 



MAPS 

The British Empire 1922 (colored) Frontispiece 

Mediaeval Trade Routes 15 

The West Indies in 1763 49 

The East Indies 57 

The Indian Peninsula in 1763 89 

The British Empire in 1783 129 

The British Empire in 1815 158 

India in 1857 195 

Canada before Confederation 215 

Australia and New Zealand 237 

The Development of South Africa ' 265 

Africa in 1881 292 

The Indian Ocean 325 

Malaysia 329 

The Western Entrance to the Mediterranean 341 

The Suez Canal and its Approaches 345 

The Southwestern Pacific 396 

The Growth of Canada 402 

Africa in 1922 454 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
BRITISH EMPIRE 

• 

CHAPTER I 

THE PREPARATION FOR EMPIRE 

The spread of the British Empire begins with the permanent 
settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. With each suc- 
ceeding century the Empire has expanded, with the single ex- 
ception of the closing years of the eighteenth century, when 
the American colonies were lost. To-day, it is one of the great 
dominating forces of the world. The War of 1914 has dem- 
onstrated more than ever its power and its adaptability to 
new needs and conditions. As one endeavors to appraise its 
possibilities, a review of the growth of Greater Britain serves 
to furnish the key to motive and the secrets of successful ex- 
pansion. It is a fascinating study, this extension of England 
beyond the seas; it has all the attractiveness and swing of a 
cosmic epic. In order that we may understand the settle- 
ment of Jamestown and all that follows, a preliminary sur- 
vey must needs be made of the growth of English unity at 
home, of this composite product called an Englishman, of 
the institutions developed during the Middle Ages and the 
early modern period that gave a beneficent as well as a power- 
ful quality to English endeavor. 

One of the remarkable traits of the inhabitants of the 
British Isles has been their genius for colonizing, their adapt- 
ability to new conditions. The process of joining races and of 
forming a composite capable of such accomplishment has 
been in progress during the whole of British history. It is 
sometimes forgotten that the Britisher of modern times is 
a mixture of numerous racial elements. The earliest inhab- 
itants of Britain of whom anything at all definite is knowo 



2 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

were probably akin to the Basques. These people, sometimes 
called Iberian, controlled the islands in the New Stone Age. 
Following them, the Celts began to occupy the British Isles in 
the Bronze Age. The Celts came in at least two waves: the 
Goidelic Celts, whose descendants live with the least inter- 
mixture in the Highlands of Scotland, on the Isle of Man, and 
in Ireland; and the Brythonic Celts, who are represented to- 
day by the Welsh and the Cornishmen. Each new wave of 
invading people tended to push farther westward or moun- 
tain-ward the preceding groups. There was probably some 
amalgamation of conquerors and conquered, but it is very- 
difficult to say to what extent it took place. It is important 
to note, however, that when the Romans came to Britain in 
55 b.c. the people of the British Isles were already of mixed 
stock. 

The Romans stayed for about four hundred years. They 
built great roads, reared defensive walls in northern Eng- 
land against the wild and unconquered inhabitants of Scot- 
land, and established Roman customs and civilization. But 
the pressure of the barbarian tribes on the Roman Empire 
in the fifth century compelled the transfer of the troops in 
Britain to more important points of defense. When the is- 
land was evacuated in the fifth century, relatively few traces 
of the Roman occupation were left to the succeeding centu- 
ries. This was largely owing to the almost immediate con- 
quest of the island by new and uncultured races. About 
450 a.d., the Jutes landed on the island of Thanet, off the 
coast of Kent. They came from the northeast and were 
Teutonic in race, and with them began numerous movements 
of Teutonic groups into the island. The Jutes occupied 
Kent; the Saxons settled in Surrey, Sussex, Wessex, and 
Middlesex; the Angles conquered the east and north of Eng- 
land, including East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia. In 
this way there was added another distinct stock to form the 
composite Britisher. 

By the end of the seventh century the Anglo-Saxons had 
conquered most of England. Out of the chaos of small king- 
doms there grew overlordships, and the dominance was held 



THE PREPARATION FOR EMPIRE 3 

first by one strong kingdom and then by another. Finally 
it rested in the southwest kingdom of Wessex. Hardly had 
Egbert, the ruler of Wessex, assured his overlordship when 
he was troubled by the beginning of the Danish invasions. 
By the term "Dane" is meant not only the inhabitant of 
Denmark, but of Scandinavia as a whole. In the ninth cen- 
tury there seems to have been a tendency to unify the rule of 
the Scandinavian countries, and this had led to the migra- 
tion of dissatisfied Northmen to Greenland, Iceland, Russia, 
France, and the British Isles. These fierce sea-rovers be- 
came a distinct menace for several centuries. Alfred the 
Great, who ruled Wessex at the close of the ninth century, 
spent most of his time opposing them. It proved impossible 
to drive them away, and finally they occupied the north- 
eastern part of England, which, in consequence, came to be 
known as the " Danelaw." Thus a new racial group was 
added to the mixture of peoples in England. Danish inva- 
sions were renewed at the opening of the eleventh century, 
and resulted in the actual conquest and rule of the country 
by the kings of Denmark. 

With the coming of William the Conqueror from Nor- 
mandy in 1066, another strain was added to the English 
stock. It is true that the Normans were descendants of the 
Norsemen who had occupied northern France when England 
was suffering a like invasion. In the intervening centuries 
Latin culture and refinement had been acquired by the Nor- 
mans. They served, in consequence, to connect the develop- 
ing England with the older civilizations of southern Europe, 
and their language, Norman-French, brought with it new 
legal ideas and governmental conceptions. After a long 
period of struggle between the two cultures, a gradual amal- 
gamation took place, which was well advanced by the end of 
the reign of Henry II (1189). The new contribution added 
by the Normans had become an integral part of the evolving 
English type. 

The value of racial origins can be overemphasized very 
easily. It appears to be true that an individual is very 
largely influenced by his cultural environment. But it is surely 



4 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

worth while to realize that the Englishman of later centuries 
was produced from a blending of peoples, a process not unlike 
that going on to-day in the Western Hemisphere and in many- 
British colonies. Yet it must be remembered that this mix- 
ture of racial groups in England has not been pronounced 
since the twelfth century, as the island was never success- 
fully attacked after the days of William the Conqueror. 
Peaceful immigrations, such as the coming of the Flemish 
workmen in the late Middle Ages and of the Huguenots in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have been of minor 
importance. Because the blending of peoples in the British 
Isles took place so long ago, the cultural influences known as 
British have extended to all classes of the population, giving 
to the national development a conscious cultural and his- 
torical unity. The various races forming the national type 
were admirably adapted to the daring work of mastering the 
sea and of empire-building, for they were lovers of the sea and 
conquerors. Added to this is the fact that the British Isles, 
in physical character and location, were peculiarly fitted to 
become the seat of empire, as they had formerly been the 
object of venturesome, sea-roving invasion. 

The earlier history of England is concerned not only with 
racial combination. For centuries the unification of the 
British Isles occupied the chief attention of the rulers. Only 
when the islands forming Great Britain were conquered, 
could England look beyond to empire. 

Until the time of the Normans, England was the extent of 
the conquered territory. With the strong hand of William 
the Conqueror holding in no uncertain grasp the control of 
English affairs, the subjugation of neighboring territory was 
undertaken. William established palatine earldoms along 
the Welsh and Scottish frontiers. Toward the close of his 
reign he even invaded Scotland and Wales, but this by no 
means meant a complete or permanent conquest of these 
neighbors. Yet Henry I, his son, compelled Malcolm of 
Scotland to do homage, and he also completed the conquest 
of South Wales. The period of anarchy, known as the reign 
of Stephen, made it necessary to do the work over again. 



THE PREPARATION FOR EMPIRE 5 

Henry II (1154-1189) was even ambitious enough to attack 
Ireland. Strongbow and other adventurers set up a feudal 
control in the western island, and the King went there in per- 
son to assure a mastery of these vassals. Henry II took the 
title " Lord of Ireland," being the first English ruler to be mas- 
ter, in the vague feudal sense, of the British islands. The 
reign of this King was noteworthy for the empire he estab- 
lished; it comprised not only Great Britain but many terri- 
tories on the Continent. All western France was subject to 
him from Ponthieu on the north to Gascony in the south. By 
advantageous marriages of his children and by constant wars 
he endeavored to hold together this " Angevin Empire." His 
life was one of continual military activity, mostly on the Con- 
tinent; had he not been of almost superhuman energy and 
ability, the incongruous combination would not have lasted 
so long as it did. He never spoke the English language, and 
his interests were more continental than insular. England 
was really but part of a foreign empire. 

The loss of most of the continental possessions by John 
Lackland in the opening years of the thirteenth century was 
fortunate for the growth of English unity. The country be- 
came more isolated, foreign influence was gradually expelled, 
and internal problems were given more attention. Great 
Britain, however, was not yet ready to think of empire. 
Edward I (1272-1307) gave much of his attention to the 
conquest of Wales. His son, Edward II, who was born at 
Carnarvon, was made Prince of Wales, and the title has 
henceforth been used to designate the heir to the throne. 
Edward I also fought hard to establish English rule in Scot- 
land. He was partially successful when Balliol was made King 
of Scotland under terms that made him the vassal of Ed- 
ward I. But Scotland soon rose under the inspiring lead of 
Wallace, and, just as Edward I completed his long reign, 
Robert Bruce headed a revolt that proved ultimately success- 
ful. Scotland became a separate, independent kingdom; it 
was not to be united with England until the personal union of 
the two countries under the Scotch King, James VI, in 1603. 

Much valuable effort was wasted in the attempt to re- 



6 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

vive English claims to French territory by Edward III and 
Henry V. As a result, England was more or less continually 
at war with France for one hundred years, but, by the middle 
of the fifteenth century, the English were driven from the Con- 
tinent. Then followed the extremely wasteful civil conflicts 
known as the " Wars of the Roses." There was great loss of life 
and material resources in these military struggles that occupied 
the middle years of the fifteenth century. Gradually, how- 
ever, the rival claimants to the English throne were re- 
moved by a process of elimination. This period of internal 
struggle came to an end with the accession of Henry VII to 
the kingship in 1485. As the representative of both rival 
factions, he brought peace and prosperity, for under his rule 
and that of his house, the Tudors, was laid the foundation 
for a strong and aggressive England, able to take part in the 
larger life of the world. 

Wales had been subjugated by Edward I. The Welsh an- 
cestry of Henry VII made it more definitely a part of the 
kingdom. In 1536, Henry VIII united it with England, and 
the Welsh counties were given the same rights as the English. 
Ireland remained a difficult problem, nor has it yet ceased to 
trouble British statesmen. In the reign of Henry VII, Ire- 
land was practically independent under its feudal and tribal 
rulers. Henry VIII was the first to assume the title "King 
of Ireland." His daughter, Elizabeth, gave considerable at- 
tention to the Irish question, extending the plantation of the 
country in a ruthless manner. The Irish problem became 
more acute at this time, as the English rulers had gone over 
to the Protestant religion, while the great mass of the Irish 
were unmoved by the changes taking place to the east. In 
spite of this ill omen for British unity, the unification of 
Great Britain was nearer than ever before. With the death 
of Elizabeth in 1603, James VI became the ruler of England 
as well as of Scotland, and assumed the title "King of Great 
Britain." Four years later the first permanent English set- 
tlement beyond the seas was made, marking the beginning 
of a greater Britain. 

An important consequence of the accession of James was the 



THE PREPARATION FOR EMPIRE 7 

opening of the critical struggle that resulted in the establish- 
ment of a parliamentary government in Great Britain. The 
course of this development need not be exhaustively traced. 
It will be sufficient to indicate the way in which it culminated 
in the seventeenth century. The Witan of the Saxon period 
had at times a restraining power on the monarch. Yet repre- 
sentative government cannot be traced back to that time, as 
it really was started by the revolts of barons and churchmen 
against the aggressions of the absolute rulers who governed 
England after the Norman Conquest. 

The most noteworthy step in the checking of the royal 
power was the forcing of the Magna Charta from King John 
in 1215. The monarchy was further limited in the next reign 
by the beginning of a representative body that came to be 
known as "Parliament." Simon de Montfort, who led the 
opposition to absolute rule, called a parliament in 1265 to 
which shires, cities, and boroughs were to send representa- 
tives in addition to those of the nobles and the church. 
Further steps in the direction of representation and the 
growth of the power of Parliament were taken as time went 
on. If a king were weak or interested in foreign war and 
needed funds, additional privileges were wrested from him 
in payment for grants. For example, Edward I called the 
" Model Parliament" in 1295 in order to obtain the coopera- 
tion of the people in his enterprises. The "Parliament of 
York" in Edward IPs reign established the custom that the 
consent of the Commons was necessary to make a law valid. 
The process of impeachment was exercised by the "Good 
Parliament" in the reign of Edward III. The chaos of the 
closing centuries of the Middle Ages as well as the des- 
potism of the Tudors in the sixteenth century tended to 
weaken the power of Parliament and to retard its growth. 
The ideals had not been forgotten, however, for, when the 
foreigner, James, came to the throne in 1603, the struggle for 
the control of the monarch was renewed. "Charles I had 
his Cromwell" and James II was forced to "vacate" the 
throne in 1688. In the next year William of Orange — an- 
other foreigner — and Mary ascended to power at the re- 



8 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

quest and by the permission of Parliament. By that time 
Parliament had effectively curbed the royal power, although 
much progress had to be made before the representation of 
the people by Parliament became real. 

This brief survey has shown that Great Britain was re- 
markably prepared to build an empire at the opening of the 
seventeenth century. Practical unity had been attained at 
home; there was a strong government under the control of 
the representative Parliament. Centuries of struggle had 
moulded a composite people into a group capable of imperial 
tasks. In the next place, we must consider the conditions 
outside Great Britain that were so profoundly modifying 
world affairs as to give to the prepared kingdom of Great 
Britain the opportunity to go on to empire. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The student of British expansion will have occasion to use the standard 
guides to the history of Great Britain, but reference must be made to the 
additional volumes for the colonial development. Sir Charles Lucas, The 
British Empire (London, 1915), is a brief but comprehensive introduction 
to the subject. A work of somewhat similar character is Imperial England 
(New York, 1919), by C. F. Lavell and C. E. Payne. The best one-volume 
survey of imperial growth is The British Empire — Its Past, Its Present, 
and Its Future, edited by A. F. Pollard (London, 1909). An indispensable 
series is the "Historical Geography of the British Colonies," edited by Sir 
Charles Lucas, and issued by the Oxford Press. The introductory volume, 
The Origin and Growth of the English Colonies (1903), is by H. E. Egerton. 
The seven volumes of this series, published in parts as twelve, take up the 
geography and growth of the various colonies; more detailed reference will 
be made to these volumes in subsequent bibliographies. The series con- 
tains excellent maps. A. Wyatt Tilby has published in six volumes a care- 
ful and readable account of "The English People Overseas" (London, 
191 1-14) . The first volume of A Short History of the British Commonwealth 
has appeared from the pen of Professor Ramsay Muir (London, 1920) ; the 
attempt to make a synthesis of British history by relating the gradual ex- 
pansion and unification of English influence in the British Isles to the work 
of empire beyond the seas is carried in this volume to 1763. The Cambridge 
Modern History and the Dictionary of National Biography will be found of 
much value for particular subjects and individuals. The Annual Register 
has been published ever since the time of the Seven Years' War, and fur- 
nishes a detailed and contemporary treatment of colonial matters as well 
as general politics for those to whom it is available. 

There are several bibliographical guides that will be found of service. 
The English Historical Association has published a leaflet on Books on 



THE PREPARATION FOR EMPIRE 9 

Colonial History. In the "Helps for Students of History" series there is a 
useful consideration of books on this subject by Professor A. P. Newton, 
An Introduction to the Study of Colonial History (London, 1919). A full 
bibliography of somewhat older date will be found appended to H. E. 
Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy (London, 1910). 

A brief collection of documents has been made by A. B. Keith, Selected 
Speeches and Documents on British Colonial Policy, 1763-1917 (2 vols., 
Oxford, 1918) . A useful volume of maps is that of Robertson and Barthol- 
omew, Historical and Modern Atlas of the British Empire, published by the 
Clarendon Press. 



CHAPTER II 

THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION 

It is customary to begin modern history with the opening 
of the sixteenth century. About that time such significant 
changes were taking place that the break seems more easily 
made at that point than elsewhere. One of the important 
reasons for making a convenient division of world-progress 
about 1500 was the remarkable change occurring at that 
time in European commercial conditions. It is necessary, 
in the next place, to see just what this change was, and what 
part England took in the commercial and industrial move- 
ments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

TRADE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

The emergence of commerce and the development of town 
life are two very interesting aspects of the later Middle Ages. 
Some towns evolved from markets or fairs held at convenient 
places. Others can be connected with certain industries. 
During the Middle Ages the commercial intercourse that ex- 
isted was carried on, for the most part, by towns with each 
other. It is incorrect to speak of a national trade in the 
Middle Ages. In the towns the trade was controlled at first 
by organizations known as "merchant gilds." These gilds, 
which became prominent in the twelfth century, consisted of 
those of a particular community who were interested in trade. 
Both the buyer and the seller in a community were protected 
by the gild which had the monopoly of trade for the town. 
In England, for example, foreigners from other countries or 
other English towns were forbidden to trade in such a way as 
to interfere with the gild's members. Buying and selling had 
to be in certain specified places, tolls could be exacted, and 
reciprocal arrangements made with other towns. This pro- 
tective and fraternal organization later merged into the town 
government. 



THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION 11 

As industry developed, the craft gilds were added to the 
merchant gilds. These became common in the thirteenth 
century. Craft gilds were composed of members doing a 
particular kind of manufacture or trade in a particular com- 
munity. The weavers and fullers of cloth seem to have 
formed the first craft gilds. Many odd craft names have 
come down to our day, often as surnames; e.g., the lorimers 
(makers of bits), goldsmiths, bowyers, fletchers (arrow-mak- 
ers), tailors, mercers, pepperers (grocers). By the end of 
Edward Ill's reign (1377) there were in London about fifty 
gilds with separate organizations. The remnants of some 
seventy-five gilds exist to-day in London, no longer control- 
ling in their trades, but exercising by their large ownership of 
property and their charities an important influence in Lon- 
don municipal affairs. 1 These gilds did much to further in- 
dustry. Manufacturing was regulated, careful arrangements 
were made for proficiency in the trades by apprenticeship 
and for the standardization of the size and quality of goods. 
Fines were imposed for "false work" and expulsion from the 
gild might be used as a punishment. 

The merchant and craft gilds were still in operation at the 
close of the Middle Ages. By this time they had outlived 
their usefulness, although they had done good service in pre- 
paring for more comprehensive arrangements. The growth 
of trade on a large scale, especially with foreign cities, tended 
to break down the gild system. An increasing national feel- 
ing and stronger centralized governments worked toward a 
more adequate commercial policy. 

In its relations commercially with the Continent, Eng- 
land was long dependent for fine manufactured goods on its 
better developed neighbors. Even the carrying trade was 
largely in the hands of foreigners for most of the Middle Ages. 
Great fairs were held in the various parts of England con- 
venient for the bringing of products from afar, and here the 
people would congregate for their annual purchasing of goods 

1 The twelve great companies of London at the present time are the Mercers, 
Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Taylors, 
Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, and Clothworkers. 



12 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

not made at home. A famous fair was that of Winchester, 
which was held mainly for the disposal of woolen goods. The 
greatest of all English fairs was held in September of each 
year at Stourbridge near Cambridge. This was attended by 
merchants from across the seas. Here English raw materials 
were exchanged for Venetian and Genoese goods from the 
Far East, for Flemish cloth, French wines, and the varied 
supply brought by the merchants of the Hanse towns. 

England, as the producer of raw materials, was famous for 
its wool, since the unsettled conditions in Europe — the 
result of the constant wars — gave to England consider- 
able importance as a sheep-raising country. The chief pur- 
chaser of English raw woolens was Flanders, although some 
went as far as Italy. The evident Flemish interests of the 
English kings can be accounted for by the desire to keep 
these markets open, especially as the wool-tax was one of 
the king's important sources of income. Edward III re- 
ceived annually about £50,000 from this tax. Edward I 
had named certain ports through which the wool trade could 
proceed in order that the duties on wool could be more easily 
collected. This trade was entrusted to an organization known 
as the " Merchants of the Staple." A patent was issued in 
1313 requiring the choice of one staple in the Low Countries 
to which all wool should be taken ; Bruges was the staple in the 
early fourteenth century. About the middle of that century 
the staple was removed to England, and later it was located 
at Calais after that port had become an English possession. 
Finally the whole system declined because of the growing de- 
mand at home for the raw materials, since the Merchants of 
the Staple dealt only in the raw product. 

Impetus was given to the development of the woolen man- 
ufacture in England by the immigration of Flemish cloth- 
makers in large numbers during the fourteenth century. The 
chief center of the foreign weavers was Norwich, and the 
principal product was called "Worsted" from Worstead, the 
place of manufacture. This change by which England be- 
came a manufacturing nation as well as a producer of the 
materials for manufacture is very significant; it meant that 



THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION 13 

England was to take a more important place in the world's 
commerce. 

ENGLISH COMMERCIAL EXPANSION 

English commerce in English ships became important only 
toward the close of the Middle Ages. Before the sixteenth 
century, the Hanse merchants and the Italian cities had the 
major part of English foreign commerce, although the Mer- 
chants of the Staple exported raw wool to Flanders. When 
England began to produce cloth for foreign use, an organiza- 
tion of English merchants known as the " Merchant Adven- 
turers" began to contend with the Hanse for the Baltic trade. 
By 1505 the Merchant Adventurers had a strong central or- 
ganization. It was found to be necessary for English mer- 
chants to unite, as foreign commerce was hazardous and ex- 
posed to attack. As English commerce extended to new 
fields, companies similar to the Merchant Adventurers were 
granted trading privileges for particular parts of the Euro- 
pean continent or of the new lands being discovered. In the 
sixteenth century unorganized or free trade existed only with 
France, Spain, and Portugal. During this time, in conse- 
quence, many important companies came into being. The 
Russian or Muscovy Company was established in 1554. The 
Mediterranean trade was granted to the Turkey or Levant 
Company. In 1579 Queen Elizabeth sent William Harburn 
to Turkey to obtain trading privileges. He was successful, 
and two years later the Company was organized. Previous 
to that time the Venetians had been accustomed to send an 
annual fleet with eastern goods to Southampton. The Bar- 
bary or Morocco Company was organized in 1585, and the 
Guinea Company three years later. In 1600, the most im- 
portant of all for colonial expansion, the East India Com- 
pany was chartered. Of similar character are the companies 
that had to do with early colonizing and commercial activity 
on the part of England in the Western Hemisphere, such as 
the Virginia Company, the Plymouth Company, the Hud- 
son's Bay Company. 

When Henry VII became King in 1485 he brought peace 



14 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

to England by the union in his one person of the rival claims 
to the throne. He accomplished much more. This frugal 
and business-like King, who left nearly £2,000,000 in his 
treasury, did a great deal to foster commerce. With his reign 
the transition from the Middle Ages is made. He offered 
bounties for the building of large ships, and built at Ports- 
mouth the first drydock in England. In 1493 the Flemings 
were banished from England and the headquarters of the 
Merchant Adventurers were moved from Antwerp to Calais. 
The Intercursus Magnus of 1496 was entered into with the 
Netherlands, and commercial treaties were concluded with 
many other countries. 

Two treaties are of particular interest as showing commer- 
cial expansion in widely different fields. In 1490 a treaty was 
made with Norway permitting the English certain privileges 
in Iceland, such as the right to form companies, trade directly 
with that island, and work under favorable customs terms. 
In the same year a treaty was made with Florence whereby 
greater freedom of trade was allowed with England, and an 
English wool staple was established at the port of Pisa. Eng- 
lish enterprise soon went farther afield, for we learn that an 
Englishman by the name of Dionysius Harris was made con- 
sul of Candia in 1530. 

Just at the close of the fifteenth century, Henry VII is- 
sued a patent to John Cabot, a Venetian residing at Bristol, 
to sail in search of a northwest passage to the Far East. In 
June, 1497, he landed on the North American continent near 
Cape Breton. With this voyage England had been drawn 
into the stream of an even wider interest, and the Middle 
Ages had been left behind. It will now be necessary to find 
why such a voyage as this should ever have been made. 

THE FAR EAST 

The desire to come into close touch with the Far East is 
explained by the variety and value of its goods and their 
great desirability for European use. There was an insistent 
demand in Europe for the spices of the East. During the long 
winters, salt meat and salt fish were the common articles of 



16 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

food. The monotonous diet, the coarse food, and the un- 
skilled cookery justified a generous use of condiments. The 
only known source for them was Asia. Nutmegs, mace, 
cloves, and allspice could be obtained only from the Spice 
Islands or Moluccas, a group of small islands southeast of the 
Philippines. Pepper was still more valuable than these 
spices, so much so that it was even eaten separately as a deli- 
cacy. In fact, grocers were commonly called "pepperers." 
Great quantities of this condiment must have been con- 
sumed, as the Venetians for years had a contract with the 
Sultan of Egypt to buy annually 420,000 pounds of pepper. 
The field of production for pepper was largely confined to 
the Malabar (southwest) coast of India. Precious stones, 
fine woods, and perfumes were largely exported from Asia as 
well. Fine cloths came from various parts of that continent. 
Calicut gave its name to calico; muslin was named from the 
Mesopotamian city of Mussolo (the modern Mosul) ; many 
names, such as taffeta, damask, brocade, buckram, sendal, 
cashmere, cubeb, have survived as mute witnesses of this 
trade. 

This important and lucrative commerce followed three 
routes in the closing centuries of the Middle Ages. There 
was a southern route which followed the coast of Asia to 
India and thence along the shore of the Indian Ocean to 
Mecca. From here the goods of the East were taken by cara- 
van to the Nile, and at Cairo and Alexandria were reloaded 
on Venetian vessels for Europe. A second course was fol- 
lowed by turning up into the Persian Gulf, where at Bagdad 
caravans received the riches of the East, and bore them to 
the coast towns of western Asia Minor, especially Beyrout, 
Tripoli, and Antioch. Here again Italian merchants were 
prepared to carry the goods to the western continent. A third 
route was to the north. It came from the rear of India and 
China by way of the Caspian to the Black Sea, where the 
Genoese were the principal receivers of the " spicy drugs" 
of the East. 

Toward the close of the Middle Ages, however, these lines 
of communication were becoming more and more difficult to 






THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION 17 

keep open as a result of the growing power of the Ottoman 
Turks. These fanatical converts to Mohammedanism had 
the instinct of barbarians; trade and luxury and the arts of 
peace were to them contemptible. These Osmanli began to 
expand from their settlements just east of the Sea of Marmora 
about 1350. By the latter part of the fourteenth century 
they controlled most of western Asia Minor and eastern Mac- 
edonia. By 1450 all of Macedonia and modern Bulgaria and 
eastern Asia Minor had been conquered. In 1453 the Turks 
captured Constantinople. In the latter part of the fifteenth 
century, Crete and Cyprus became theirs; by 1525 Syria and 
even Egypt had been added to the dominions of the Turks. 
This progress meant more than the destruction of the East- 
ern Empire; it seems to have resulted in a partial disruption 
of trade in the goods for which Europe had conceived a great 
need. Commerce along the two northern routes, in particu- 
lar, was hampered during and after the Ottoman conquests 
in Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula. The Turks nat- 
urally endeavored to make what they could from this com- 
merce, which became burdened with heavy tolls. In ad- 
dition, the constant wars caused much dislocation to the 
commercial relations with the East. 

While this situation was taking shape in the Levant, Portu- 
gal, a nation hitherto unimportant, was busily engaged in ex- 
ploring the west coast of Africa. In addition to natural ad- 
vantages of location, the Portuguese were fortunate in having 
a very able line of kings in the fifteenth century, who were 
much interested in the spread of Portuguese power. Various 
motives seem to have prompted Portuguese maritime activ- 
ity. The mythical kingdom of Prester John was supposed 
to be somewhere in central Africa; the Christian zeal of the 
Portuguese led them to wish to make union with this sur- 
vival of ancient Judaism in order to wage a further crusade 
against the encroaching infidel. To the natural interest 
in exploration and the extension of national influence was 
added the desire to reach the sources of eastern wealth by a 
route of their own that they might share in the lucrative 
commerce which hitherto had come by way of the Mediterra- 



18 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

nean. Before the western coast of Africa was made known 
by actual exploration, that continent was not thought to ex- 
tend so far south. Toward the close of the fifteenth century 
an interest in a new eastern trade route became strong. 1 

The Portuguese prince, known as Henry the Navigator, 
inaugurated the great work of exploring the coast to the 
south. He established himself at Sagres near Cape St. Vin- 
cent, where he founded an observatory and a school of instruc- 
tion. Prince Henry not only greatly furthered the science 
of navigation, but, in addition, he carried forward the prac- 
tical knowledge of new shores. At the time of his death in 
1460, his captains had gone down the west coast of Africa 
to within fifteen degrees of the equator. In 1471 the Portu- 
guese passed the equator, and in 1487 Bartholomew Diaz 
rounded the southern end of the continent. It became a 
Cape of Good Hope, as it was now felt that the point had 
been reached whence the journey north and east could be 
easily made. 

Vasco da Gama completed this remarkable series of voy- 
ages. He sailed from Lisbon in July of 1497, and by Christ- 
mas Day had gone beyond the point attained by Diaz; he 
appropriately gave the name of Natal to the land sighted 
on that day. In May, 1498, after a twenty-three day voy- 
age across the Indian Ocean, the vessels of the Portuguese 
ceased their wanderings before Calicut on the Malabar coast 
of India. A new route had been found. Great was the 
rejoicing in Lisbon when the expedition returned with a 
valuable cargo. The King wrote exultantly to Ferdinand 
and Isabella of Spain that the real Indies had been reached 
by Vasco da Gama: "Of spices they have brought a quan- 
tity, including cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and pep- 
per . . . also many fine stones of all sorts, such as rubies and 
others." 2 

1 The coincidence in time between the partial closing of the old routes and 
the exploration of the west African coast by the Portuguese does not mean that 
the two should be regarded as cause and effect. As a matter of fact, the Portu- 
guese began their African explorations long before there was any serious inter- 
ference with the Levant trade. 

* Quoted by Bourne, Spain in America, p. 73. 



THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION 19 

The Portuguese immediately set about the task of making 
this new-found wealth their own. " Factories" or trading 
posts were established on the Malabar coast of India, of 
which Goa is still in Portuguese possession. In 1511 Ma- 
lacca in the Malay Straits was taken, and in the next year 
the Spice Islands were added to the dominions of the Por- 
tuguese king. But it was not deemed sufficient to possess the 
lands whence the valuable products of the East came. To 
make their monopoly of the eastern trade more secure, Sokotra 
and Aden on the Red Sea route were occupied. In addition 
Ormuz on the Persian Gulf became a Portuguese holding in 
order to prevent goods going to Europe by way of Bagdad. 
These steps served not only as a means of hampering Ara- 
bian trade; the commerce of the Italian cities was further 
restricted. 

THE NEW WEST 

Meanwhile, in 1492 Columbus had made his memorable 
voyage across the Atlantic. The story of his efforts to find 
a patron, and of his belief that by sailing westward he could 
reach the Indies, has often been told. It is clear that the Far 
East was his goal, for, when he left Spain, he took with him 
a letter from Ferdinand and Isabella to the Great Khan. 
Moreover, a converted Jew by the name of Torres accom- 
panied the expedition in order to act as interpreter because 
of his knowledge of Arabic. When, after his landfall, Co- 
lumbus heard of Cuba, he believed it to be Cipango, and 
made plans for a visit to the Great Khan. He thought him- 
self to be in front of Zaitun with its hundred pepper ships 
a year, as he noted on his copy of Marco Polo. On reach- 
ing Cuba he imagined it was the mainland, and sent ahead 
the interpreter to the Great Khan. But Torres found only 
a village of naked Indians, who were drawing smoke from 
leaves rolled in the form of a tube, which they called tobacco. 
Columbus died after a checkered career in the belief that he 
had found the East by a new route. His contemporaries soon 
realized that he had discovered a new continent with large 
opportunities for exploitation. Columbus sought nutmegs 



20 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

and pepper, pearls and cubebs, and to that extent his work 
was a failure. 

The English took but a modest part in the task of explora- 
tion. Columbus' brother, Bartholomew, had come to Lon- 
don in 1487 in the hope of interesting Henry VII in his 
brother's plans. He was robbed by pirates on the way, and 
found employment at the English court in drawing maps and 
making globes, but was unsuccessful in his mission. John 
Cabot, a Genoese by birth, a Venetian by naturalization, 
and a resident of Bristol during the last decade of the century, 
was more fortunate. In 1496 he obtained permission from 
Henry VII to sail in quest of Cathay. He hoped to reach 
"the island of Cipango and the lands from which Oriental 
caravans brought their goods to Alexandria." The discov- 
eries of Cabot were for a time believed to have given the 
King of England " a part of Asia without drawing the sword." 1 
This venture deserves especial recognition for its daring, as 
Cabot had but one small vessel manned with eighteen men. 
But in spite of this meager equipment he discovered land in 
1497. He made a second journey in 1498 from which he 
never returned. John Cabot's son, Sebastian, followed the 
profession of his father, although much of his time was spent 
in the service of Spain. Later in the century he returned to 
England, where he became head of the Company of Merchant 
Adventurers and led in the organization and sending forth 
of expeditions to discover a northeast sea-passage to India. 
Sebastian, who died just as Elizabeth became queen, serves 
as the link between the early voyages of exploration and the 
great days of the Elizabethan seamen. 

The development from inter-municipal trade in the early 
Middle Ages to the great national interest in exploration in 
the fifteenth century has been briefly traced. These explora- 
tions were so remarkably rapid in their consequences that 
this time of change has been aptly named the "Commercial 
Revolution." The difficulties put in the way of trade in the 
Levant by the Turks and the discovery of a sea-route around 
Africa to the Far East ruined the great Mediterranean city- 

1 See Cheyney, The European Background of American History, p. 5. 



THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION 21 

states, as great commercial traders and carriers. Trade be- 
gan to center on the western coast of Europe. In the early- 
days of this change — for most of the sixteenth century — 
Portugal was supreme in the eastern trade. In addition to 
the trade with the Far East a world of opportunity was 
found to the west across the Atlantic. These new worlds, 
suddenly made accessible to the maritime nations of western 
Europe, gave a magnificent field for the establishment of 
colonial empires. 

Wealth greatly increased during this period and the na- 
tions were more than ever influenced by commercial motives. 
As a consequence, the trading classes became more important. 
With the sixteenth century we enter a new atmosphere. It 
is no whim of historians that Modern History is felt to begin 
at this time, for, indeed, " History broke in halves." By this 
change England could not but be greatly affected. Henry 
VII, patron of John Cabot and of all profitable commercial 
ventures, excellently illustrates the new type of thrifty mon- 
arch. For a while England played but a modest part in this 
world-drama evolving so rapidly. The Age of Elizabeth was 
to come and go before England stood beside Spain and Por- 
tugal in the establishment of colonial empire. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

For the development of English industrial and commercial life reference 
may be made to H. de B. Gibbins, Industry in England (New York, 1916) ; 
G. Townsend Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History (11th ed., 
Glasgow, 1910); E. P. Cheyney, Industrial and Social History of England 
(New York, 1919) ; and A. P. Usher, An Introduction to the Industrial His- 
tory of England (Boston, 1920). W. Cunningham, The Growth of English 
Industry and Commerce in Modern Times (Cambridge, 1904), is a mine of 
information. E. P. Cheyney, The European Background of American His- 
tory (New York, 1904), in "The American Nation" series, contains some 
excellent chapters on the changing commercial conditions at the opening of 
the modern period. 

For Portuguese activity during this period see C. R. Beazley, Prince 
Henry the Navigator (1897), in "The Heroes of the Nations" series, and 
R. S. Whitelaw, Rise of the Portuguese Power in India, 1497-1530 (London, 
1899). 



CHAPTER III 
THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 

The rapid progress of Portuguese and Spanish exploration 
soon gave to these two states the major part of the newly 
found lands. John Cabot's voyage entitled the English to 
go forward in like manner. But the first half of the fifteenth 
century found Englishmen lethargic; they did not awaken to 
their opportunities until aroused by the wonderful achieve- 
ments of their seamen. The causes for this inertia will be 
considered presently. But in the meantime the Spanish 
Empire grew with unabated vigor. Later when the English 
began the making of empire, the Spanish structure was 
already well builded. As the work of Spain considerably 
modified the nature of English expansion, the growth of 
Spain's oversea power must be briefly told. 

THE SPANISH EMPIRE 

In the sixteenth century a colony was a very real and ex- 
clusive possession of the mother country. When Columbus 
went forth under the flag of Spain, he was cautioned not to 
trespass on the Portuguese possessions in Africa. In partic- 
ular, he was not to visit the coast of Guinea, as Spain had 
recognized by a treaty in 1479 the exclusive rights of Por- 
tugal to lands discovered in Guinea and the islands off the 
coast with the exception of the Canaries. As soon as news 
was received that Columbus had discovered new lands, Fer- 
dinand and Isabella set about assuring their control of his 
discoveries. 

The Spanish rulers informed the Pope, Alexander VI, of 
their newly acquired possessions and asked confirmation of 
their ownership. Accordingly the Pope, in a bull of 1493, 
gave them possession of the lands discovered in the west to- 
ward the Indies in the " Ocean Sea." Mere confirmation, 
however, was too vague. Later in the year a second bull 
was issued establishing a north and south line one hundred 



THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 23 

leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands and re- 
serving all lands to the west of that line for Spain. This did 
not satisfy John of Portugal, and he opened direct negotia- 
tions with the Spanish rulers. The result was the Treaty of 
Tordesillas (1494), by which the demarcation line was moved 
to a point three hundred and seventy leagues west of the 
Cape Verde Islands. In consequence, Brazil was to become 
Portuguese territory; as yet it had not been discovered, nor 
had Vasco da Gama made his voyage to Calicut. 

With matters so settled, the rapidly developing Spanish 
kingdom built empire in amazingly quick fashion. Columbus 
made three more voyages, skirting the mainland of Central 
America for a considerable distance and touching South 
America near Trinidad. Hojeda, just at the close of the 
century, sailed along the coast of the present British Guiana 
and Venezuela. Shortly afterward Pinzon discovered land 
on the shores of Brazil. When the Portuguese finally found 
India, it became evident to the Spanish that there was a 
barrier in their way to the attainment of the same goal. 
Columbus seems to have thought that this barrier was an 
extremity of Asia. It was felt that there must be a strait 
through or a way around the Novus Mundus by which to 
obtain the pepper of the East. In 1508, Pinzon, after prov- 
ing Cuba an island, followed the coast of Central and South 
America for several thousand miles. Five years later, Balboa 
from a "peak in Darien" viewed the Pacific, taking posses- 
sion of the sea for the King of Spain, and in the same year 
Ponce de Leon discovered Florida. 

Renewed interest in a strait resulted in the expedition of 
Solis in 1514. The Rio de la Plata was discovered, but no 
passageway to the Pacific was revealed. Five years later, a 
Portuguese mariner named Magellan persuaded the Spanish 
King, whose service he had recently entered, that the Moluc- 
cas could be reached without trespassing on Portuguese terri- 
tory. In 1519, he started with five ships and coasted down 
the eastern shore of South America, passing through the 
Strait of Magellan in 1520. The Pacific Ocean was given its 
name, and the Philippines were discovered, but there Ma- 



24 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

gellan fell battling with the natives. His comrades visited 
the Spice Islands where they procured a precious cargo, 
crossed the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 
and reached Spain after three years' absence. One ship bear- 
ing thirty-one men had succeeded in circumnavigating the 
globe and discovering a way around the great obstruction 
between Europe and the Spice Islands. 

Spanish explorers on land were as successful as those on 
the sea. Cortez conquered Mexico while Magellan was on 
his memorable voyage. The southern half of the United 
States became known through the expedition of De Soto and 
the explorations of Coronado and da Vaca. Pizarro, in 1531, 
succeeded in conquering Peru with its well-nigh unlimited 
sources of wealth, and by 1540, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile 
had been added to the Spanish Empire. When the mid- 
century was reached, the work of the Spanish conquerors was 
practically accomplished. /By the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, Spain possessed the great empire of the New World to 
the west.,, In 1580, the kingdom of Portugal had been added 
to the Spanish dominions, and, as a consequence, the New 
World of the East fell under the sway of the Catholic kings. 

HENRY VIII AND ELIZABETH 

With this record of achievement, England has nothing to 
compare. The first half of the century was practically barren 
of oversea exploration; the work of John Cabot was not con- 
tinued. Possibly the unsatisfactory character of the lands 
discovered and the roughness of the North Atlantic help to 
account for this hesitancy. Nevertheless, England's political 
relation to the Continent was probably the most important 
hindrance to expansion. 

Henry VIII had succeeded his father in 1509. As the sec- 
ond of the Tudor line, his throne was not any too secure, and 
he had to tread the mazes of foreign policy carefully. The 
connection with Spain seemed important enough for Henry 
to marry the Spanish princess Catherine, the widow of his 
deceased brother. When Charles I of Spain became the 
Emperor Charles V in 1519, Henry became his ally. Henry's 



THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 25 

policy changed about 1527, as he no longer felt any need of 
keeping on good terms with the Spanish King or with the 
Pope. Various motives were back of this reversal of pol- 
icy; Charles' opposition to the English monarch's desire for 
French territory, Henry's distaste for his Spanish wife, the 
attraction of Anne Boleyn, all played a part. Over the 
question of the divorce, Henry broke off relations with the 
papal court, made himself Supreme Head of the Church in 
England, suppressed the monasteries — much to the help of 
his pocketbook — and ruled State and Church as an absolute 
monarch. The Reformation was in progress on the Conti- 
nent at the time, but Henry was not of the reforming type; the 
Reformation received official sanction in England only after 
his death. The years of his reign were replete with problems 
of European foreign policy and internal adjustments. The 
reign of his son, Edward VI, continued the struggle over re- 
ligious matters, which, in the years of Mary's rule (1553-58), 
resulted in the reestablishment of Catholicism and her mar- 
riage to Philip II of Spain. 

During this half-century England was not the sworn enemy 
of Spain, but on friendly terms for most of the time with that 
expanding state. The rulers of England were too much con- 
cerned with European politics to give attention to empire. 
And yet it would be unfair to omit mention of Henry's inter- 
est in the navy, which served indirectly to prepare for the 
accomplishments of the Elizabethan seamen. The primary 
aim of the King was not empire-building, but the improve- 
ment of the national defense. Against France and Scotland 
a good navy was an essential. When the French besieged 
the English in Boulogne and when the Scotch attempted to 
do the same to Henry's friends in St. Andrews, the need for 
an adequate navy was evident. The King was largely de- 
pendent on private vessels impressed for war service, as there 
was no permanent staff of naval officers. In fact, the ships 
of the Cinque Ports were still an important part of the na- 
tional defense. 1 

1 The great ports on the southeast coast of England were given special privi- 
leges as early as the reign of Edward I in return for defending the southern sea- 



26 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The Henry Grace de Dieu was launched in 1515 in the 
Thames. It was a five-masted vessel and was the largest 
ship then afloat. So earnest had been Henry's efforts for 
improving England's sea-power that the King was able to 
muster one hundred and fifty vessels when invasion seemed 
imminent in 1539. In 1545, a Navy Board was established 
for the first time. Henry also founded a gild, now known 
as Trinity House, for the supply of trained pilots with power 
to make "all and singular articles in any wise concerning the 
science and art of mariners." He also founded Woolwich 
dockyard. At his death Henry left a fleet of seventy-one 
vessels. All this is exceedingly important for our under- 
standing of England's later greatness on the sea, for, with 
Henry VIII, England became a real maritime state. The 
time of test for this growing naval strength was to come in 
the reign of Elizabeth. 

When Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne 
Boleyn, became Queen in 1558, peculiar difficulties faced the 
new ruler, which called for all her diplomatic ability and 
caution. Two religious factions, an extreme Catholic and a 
violent reforming party, were fighting for power. Elizabeth, 
however, could be nothing but a Protestant and retain her 
self-respect, for she was the fruit of Henry's marriage after he 
broke with Rome. Elizabeth hoped by pursuing a middle 
course to avoid serious complications and to please the ma- 
jority of her subj ects. There was real reason for this caution, 
as a possible occupant of the throne was Mary, Queen of the 
Scots, and a Catholic ; if Spain by any chance should make 
war with England and should make up with France, England 
would be a Protestant country surrounded by enemies eager 
to take advantage of any slip or weakness. This meant 
that Elizabeth had to be particularly careful in foreign rela- 
tions, especially avoiding open war with Spain. 

board of the island. Until the time of the Tudors they furnished nearly all of 
the ships, and for some time after gave much assistance to the permanent fleet. 
Originally, they were five in number — "Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, 
Hithe and Dover" — but later were increased to seven by the addition of Rye 
and Winchelsea. Their task is recalled in Longfellow's "The Warden of the 
Cinque Ports." 



THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 27 

As the long reign progressed, it was more and more difficult 
to keep a neutral course. Catholicism, of which Philip II 
was regarded as the great champion, was becoming aggres- 
sive in its efforts to recover ground lost earlier in the century 
to the Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545-63) had 
restated the doctrines of the Catholic Church in such a way 
as to make them effective against the Protestants. The 
Order of the Jesuits, founded by Loyola in 1540, made in- 
creasing efforts to further the Catholic cause by its absolute 
obedience to the wishes of the Pope. Mary, Queen of Scots, 
who had returned to Scotland in 1561, was forced to flee to 
England six years later for refuge from her disgusted sub- 
jects. There she was imprisoned for twenty years, but, in 
spite of that, Mary was always a center of Catholic revolt 
against Elizabeth. The Jesuits, to make matters worse for 
the English, established a school at Douai, whence priests es- 
pecially trained to win England back to the Catholic Church 
went across the Channel in increasing numbers. The Hu- 
guenot Wars in France and the revolt of the Netherlands 
against Spain gave the English Queen alternate hope and 
despair. 

At last, in the eighties, the veiled conflict of England and 
Spain became open war. The English Queen gave assistance 
to the Netherlands in 1585 because Philip II of Spain and 
Henry of Guise in France had agreed to drive Protestantism 
from both France and the Netherlands. Philip thereupon 
planned an attack upon England and the Netherlands simul- 
taneously, while the Catholics of England were to rise in 
favor of the imprisoned Mary. This plan, added to plots 
against the life of Elizabeth, sealed the doom of the Scotch 
Queen, who was executed in 1587. Shortly after, the Great 
Armada of Spain descended on England. The struggle be- 
tween the two countries had become a death-grapple. 

Before describing the event that gave to the English their 
mastery of the sea, attention must be called to another 
cause for Spanish enmity. As a matter of fact, it was prob- 
ably not religious animosity or even anger at Elizabeth's 
assistance to the Netherlands that led to Philip's direct at- 



28 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

tack on England. The Spanish Empire and its valuable 
commerce had become the prey of the daring English "sea- 
dogs." 

THE ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN 

There had been a growing estrangement between the 
"tight" little island and the Spanish dominions, for which 
the reasons are not hard to find. For one thing, the exclu- 
sive nature of Spain's colonial system made it impossible for 
any other nation to trade legitimately with Spanish colo- 
nies and thus share, even to a small degree, in the riches 
flowing in such abundance to Madrid. The Spanish colonial 
policy was so framed as to restrict the trade of the Empire 
to Spanish subjects. Furthermore, not even all of Philip's 
subjects could carry on trade with the colonies, as Cadiz and 
Seville were declared to be the only places from which ships 
could sail to the colonies and to which they could return. The 
vessels for the colonies went in fleets after 1561; each year 
two fleets were supposed to go, although in some years this 
service was interrupted. The fleet system enabled the fleets 
to be protected by an escort and made the collection of cus- 
toms dues easier. The sale of goods in the colonies was 
carried on in fairs in specified places such as Cartagena and 
Porto Bello (near Colon). When the fleet arrived at Carta- 
gena, trade in.-European goods was prohibited between Lima 
and Quito. On account of the great rigidity of this system 
and its unfairness to certain parts of the Spanish colonies, 
the colonists were not averse to illicit trade with foreigners, 
and such people as the English, with their growing com- 
merce, were able to take advantage of the opportunities thus 
offered, even though it were at a high risk. 

This growing English commerce made the situation from 
England's point of view a more and more difficult one. The- 
oretically, England could not trade at all with the Far East 
or the new West; the only hope of Englishmen was to find 
a new route to the Oriental sources of wealth, as the trade 
routes were as much of a monopoly as the lands to which they 
led. Valiant attempts were made to" find a northeast as 



THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 29 

well as a northwest passage to the Indies. Under Sebastian 
Cabot's direction, a joint-stock company was formed in Lon- 
don, and an expedition was sent out under Chancellor and 
Willoughby in 1553. Archangel was reached, and an outlet 
was found for English commerce. This was a notable achieve- 
ment, as it opened a way for English trade through Russia 
to the Caspian Sea and the lands farther east, under the guid- 
ance of the Russia or Muscovy Company. 1 

In the eighties, three important trading companies were 
formed, the Turkey, the Morocco, and the Guinea Com- 
panies. In the nineties daring English seamen even rounded 
the Cape of Good Hope. English trade was developing so 
fast that sooner or later it could not but come into conflict 
with Spain's great monopoly of the desirable sources for 
tropical wealth. 

Probably the most important reason for the growing trou- 
ble between Philip and Elizabeth lay in the growth of the 
spirit of English maritime adventure. This is an intangible 
force to appraise, but its effects were soon evident. Much of 
the "spaciousness" of the reign of good Queen Bess lay in the 
energizing breath of the salt sea and in the enlarging freedom 
that came to cramped muscles with the achievements of the 
Elizabethan buccaneers. It is the story over again of the 
Northmen of the early Middle Ages, with England now the 
source and not the object of the sea-roving expeditions. 

One of the foremost mariners of the age was John Hawkins. 
His name is particularly connected with the beginning of the 
African slave-trade with America. The Spanish planters 

1 A notable Englishman connected with this development was Anthony 
Jenkinson. In 1553, he had been at Aleppo and had obtained from Solyman 
the Great the right to trade in Turkish ports without hindrance. Two years 
later, he became a member of the Mercer's Company and headed the Muscovy 
fleet in 1557. He made three journeys into Russia, visiting the Czar and ob- 
taining for Englishmen the monopoly of trade in the White Sea. Jenkinson 
also penetrated Persia and went as far as Bokhara in the interests of trade; he 
was the first Englishman to go into Central Asia. A document granting him a 
coat of arms tells the story of many others of his time; in the grant he is de- 
scribed as "one who for the service of his prince, weal of his country, and for 
knowledge sake, hath not feared to adventure and hazard his life and to wear 
his body with long and painful travel into divers and sundry countries." See 
the Dictionary of National Biography, xxix, 309. 



30 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

were in need of workmen, but the natives of the New World 
died in great numbers under the restraint and hard labor im- 
posed upon them. Las Casas, the great missionary to the 
Indies, had advocated the use of the blacks from Africa as 
a providential plan for protecting the natives of the New 
World, whose souls he was so intent on saving. In accord- 
ance with this benevolent purpose, Hawkins made his first 
voyage in 1562. Three hundred negroes were obtained in 
Guinea and sold with profit in San Domingo for hides, ginger, 
sugar, and pearls. In 1565 a second cargo of slaves was ob- 
tained and again disposed of, though with more difficulty 
than before, as Spain had taken measures to prevent this 
illegal trade. So successful was this expedition that Eliza- 
beth granted Hawkins a coat of arms, the heraldic emblems 
of which include symbols that indicate that there was thought 
to be something akin to a crusade in Hawkins' expedi- 
tions. 1 

A third expedition of five ships went out in 1567, again led 
by the Jesu,s, and with young Francis Drake as commander of 
one of the vessels. Between four and five hundred negroes 
were exported to the West Indies. The narrative in Hak- 
luyt reads: "We coasted from place to place, making our 
traffic with the Spaniards as we might, somewhat hardly, 
because the king had straitly commanded all his governors in 
those parts by no means to suffer any trade to be made with 
us. Notwithstanding, we had reasonable trade, and cour- 
teous treatment, from the isle of Margarita to Cartagena." 
But this good fortune did not continue. At a town called 
Rio de la Hache, "from whence come all the pearls," they had 
to storm the place in order to obtain sale for their human 
goods. In the harbor of St. John de Ullua, the port of Mex- 
ico, they were treacherously attacked by the Spaniards, 
after having been promised safety. Only two vessels were 

1 It is difficult to see how gentlemen could have engaged in this wretched 
business, but there were few to find fault in those days. Hawkins' flagship was 
named the Jesus, and his sailing orders included the admonition to "serve God 
daily." On the second voyage, the fleet was becalmed in mid-ocean, but when 
the wind finally arose, Hawkins' comment was, "Almighty God, who never 
suflereth his elect to perish, sent us the ordinary breeze." 



THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 31 

able to escape; in one was Hawkins and in the other was 
Francis Drake. 1 

Hawkins remained in England for some years after this 
disastrous voyage. In 1573 he was made Treasurer and 
Controller of the Royal Navy, contributing by his practical 
experience much that made the superiority of the English 
vessels in the fight with the Spanish Armada so outstanding. 
Drake took his revenge in more spectacular fashion. He be- 
came the " Dragon," so successful was he in terrifying the 
Spanish by his bold attacks on their shipping; his circumnav- 
igation of the globe carried his revenge into seas that had 
hitherto been the exclusive possession of the Spanish. 

This famous voyage began in 1577 with five ships, of 
which the largest was the Pelican, of one hundred tons. 
After the Strait of Magellan was passed, the flagship had to 
go on alone. The account of the Pelican's northward jour- 
ney reads like a fairy story. At Valparaiso the English 
plundered a large ship and rifled the town: "We came to a 
small chapel which we entered, and found therein a silver 
chalice, two cruets and one altar cloth, the spoil whereof our 
General gave to M. Fletcher his minister." At Tarapaca 
they found a Spaniard lying asleep with thirteen bars of silver 
beside him: "We took the silver and left the man." At 
Arica fifty-seven wedges of silver were acquired. At Lima, 
Drake learned of a treasure-ship that had recently departed 
for the Isthmus. All haste was made, and the vessel was 
overtaken: "We found in her great riches, as jewels and 
precious stones, thirteen chests full of reals of plate, four- 
score pound weight of gold and six-and- twenty ton of silver." 
Not long thereafter a vessel was met containing much linen 
and China dishes and China silks, "all of which things we 
took as we listed." It was at this point that Drake began 
to plan for the return voyage, "thinking himself both in 
respect of his private injuries received from the Spaniards, 
as also their contempts and indignities offered to our country 
and prince in general, sufficiently satisfied and revenged." 

1 See Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen, edited by E. J. Payne (Oxford, 
1907), pp. 71 ff. 



32 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The intrepid Drake decided to return by way of Asia and 
the Cape of Good Hope. After going northwards along the 
American coast probably as far as Oregon, the Pelican went 
across the Pacific. A stop was made at the Spice Islands, in 
due time the Cape of Good Hope was passed, and the Pelican 
ended its three-year voyage around the world in 1580. Great 
was the Spanish wrath, but Drake's reception at home was 
enthusiastic. The Queen received him with undisguised 
favor, making him a knight on board his ship. 1 

During the years that Drake was away, Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert attempted to colonize Newfoundland. But he was 
lost at sea in 1583, and his half-brother, Walter Raleigh, 
succeeded to his patent rights. Raleigh made a number of 
efforts to colonize the country called Virginia, where in 1587 
an ill-fated colony was established at Roanoke. John White, 
who returned to England from Virginia to obtain help for the 
new colony, found no sign of life when he went back to Roan- 
oke in 1591; what happened to this "lost" colony has been 
a subject of much conjecture. 

Numerous other exploits might be added to the list al- 
ready made, but these are typical of the work of the Elizabe- 
than seamen. The motives were varied; plunder, commerce, 
and colonization all have a place, with the desire for easily 
won wealth as the usual spring of action. 

John White was delayed on his return to England in ob- 
taining succor for the needy colonists at Roanoke. He found 
that Philip and Elizabeth at last were waging open conflict. 
The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was the climax of 
the work of the Elizabethan seamen. The story of this running 
sea-fight is well known and need not be retold here. Suffice 
it to say that Philip felt that the only thing to do was to 
attack his covert enemy openly and at home. A great fleet 
was fitted out, but its one hundred and thirty vessels were 
better prepared to carry troops than to fight battles at sea. 
The English had advanced rapidly in maritime science in 
the years immediately preceding, and their heavily armed and 
mobile ships were manned by men trained to the sea. In the 

1 See Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen for the contemporary account. 



THE FOUNDATION FOR EMPIRE 33 

great sea-battle in which the Spanish Armada was defeated, 
the enemy of England lost sixty-three ships in the fight and 
as a result of the storms encountered on the return voyage. 
The English lost no vessels, and but sixty-eight men were 
killed or wounded. 1 

The significance of this victory for the Empire was great; 
as Seeley's words attest: "Here begins the modern history of 
England." The English had shown themselves masters of 
the sea; the dreaded Spaniard was no longer to be feared. 
On the contrary, the war which followed was carried to Spain 
itself, for Drake led an expedition to Lisbon — at that time 
a Spanish possession — where sixty vessels were seized. A 
crusading spirit was developed against Spain, and England 
was unified and strengthened by its great victory. Not only 
did the mastery of the sea lead England to think of empire, 
but it produced a national patriotism in proportions hitherto 
unknown. 

Literature expressed this new national feeling and opti- 
mism. The chroniclers put into form the accounts of the 
various exploits that had shown the "mettle" of the English 
on the "vasty fields" of the sea. Hakluyt in 1582 published 
Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America, and in 1589 
his Principall Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the 
English Nation. So great was its success that a larger edition 
appeared in 1600. Samuel Purchas early in the next cen- 
tury supplemented the work of Hakluyt by having printed 
Purchas His Pilgrimes, Containing a History of the World in 
Sea-Voyages, and Land-Travails by Englishmen and Others. 

One of the most familiar and classic expressions of this 
national temper is the description of the proud and confident 
England of Elizabeth's day in Shakespeare's Richard 11: 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise; 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 
Against infection and the hand of war; 

1 On the base of Drake's statue at Plymouth are the words: "Efflavit Deus 
et dissipati sunt." 



34 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

This happy breed of men, this little wolrd, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall 
Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
Against the envy of less happier lands. 

With the close of this great age we have reached the be- 
ginnings of Greater Britain. The English had come to see, 
as Henry VIII was reported (by Lord Herbert of Cherbury) 
to have said on an earlier occasion: " England alone is a just 
Empire, or when we enlarge ourselves, let it be in that way 
we can and to which it seems the eternal providence hath 
destined us, which is by the sea." The defeat of the Armada 
made this a conviction with Englishmen and began the "mod- 
ern history of England." 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The development of the Spanish Empire has been well told in E. G. 
Bourne, Spain in America, 1450-1580 (New York, 1904). A recent and 
detailed account is that of H. B. Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire 
in the Old World and in the New (New York, 1918). For the early explora- 
tion see Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. in. A de- 
lightful and authoritative record is that of Edward Channing, History of 
the United States, vol. i, chapters i-v (New York, 1905). Perhaps the most 
convenient place in which to read the contemporary accounts of the Eng- 
lish voyages is Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen, edited by E. J. Payne, 
with additional notes by C. R. Beazley (Oxford, 1907), though a very useful 
edition of Hakluyt is to be found in "Everyman's Library." For a de- 
tailed treatment of the growth of England's maritime power during this 
period see the two works of Sir Julian S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor 
Navy; with a History of the Rise of England as a Maritime Power (2 vols., 
London, 1898), and The Successors of Drake (London, 1900), as well as Sir 
Charles Lucas, The Beginning of English Over Seas Enterprise: A Prelude to 
the Empire (Oxford, 1917). 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 

The sixteenth century has been found to be fundamental in 
the preparation for empire by its enlargement of the scope of 
English maritime interest. There was also the beginning of 
a navy and the formation of trading companies for the monop- 
olization of the English commercial relations with the va- 
rious parts of the non-European world. The seventeenth 
century, with these accomplishments as a foundation, served 
as the age in which the imperial structure was begun, an 
empire that grew with the succeeding years so that by the 
end of the nineteenth century it girdled the earth. Although 
the major emphasis of the present volume is on the modern 
conditions, the genesis of the Empire is so important that it 
warrants careful attention. 

THE STUARTS 

The political conditions in England during this century 
were so unsettled that it is surprising that any time was found 
for things over the sea. When Elizabeth died in 1603, the 
throne went to James VI of Scotland, who became the first 
Stuart ruler of Great Britain, under the title of James I. The 
union of the two countries was not a real or organic one, but 
a nominal one only effected by the person of the ruler; the 
actual union was retarded for one hundred years. For nu- 
merous reasons James was ill-fitted to rule his dominions: he 
regarded himself as a paragon of wisdom; he held excessive 
opinions concerning divine right; in person, speech, and 
manner he was eccentric and unkingly. James ruled until 
his death in 1625 in conflict with Parliament concerning his 
prerogatives, endeavoring to keep on good relations with 
Spain, permitting England to take an ignoble place in con- 
tinental affairs, causing much bitterness among his subjects, 
and leaving to Charles I, his son, an empty treasury and 
numerous problems. 



36 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Charles I began his reign sorely pressed financially, and 
Parliament was determined to take advantage of this to 
obtain more privileges. In 1628 the Petition of Right was 
forced on the King, but the next year Charles dissolved Par- 
liament and endeavored to rule the country until 1640 with- 
out the assistance of this pugnacious body. Taxation was 
arbitrary, and the king's prerogatives seemed to be increas- 
ing. Moreover, Puritan sentiment was outraged, as Charles 
seemed to be going in the direction of Roman Catholicism. 
When the Long Parliament met in 1640, the struggle be- 
tween the King and the people reached a more acute stage. 
The result was the beginning of the Civil War in 1642, a con- 
flict that ended with the King's execution in 1649. 

For the next eleven years the Commonwealth, controlled 
by Cromwell and the army, was the form of government. A 
rather vigorous foreign policy was entered upon, eventuating 
in war with the Dutch and the rapid decline of that state as 
the commercial rival of England. In 1660 the restoration of 
the Stuart line, in the person of Charles II, brought about 
the overthrow of Puritan rule in politics and life. Religious 
toleration was granted, an alliance was made with the Por- 
tuguese by Charles' marriage to Catherine of Braganza, and 
another war with the Dutch ensued. As the reign progressed, 
there was growing evidence of increasing intimacy between 
Charles and the Catholic ruler of France, Louis XIV, and the 
country again became fearful of possible Romanism in its 
rulers. 

When James II succeeded his brother in 1685, this fear be- 
came a fact, as James was a Roman Catholic. Yet even this 
could be endured with the prospect of a Protestant successor. 
But when a son was born to the King by his Catholic wife 
this possibility vanished. In addition, his high-handed 
measures against Parliament and his Indulgences for the 
Catholics created such ill-feeling that there was a revolution. 
James was allowed to leave the country and was succeeded 
by William of Orange and his wife, Mary, a Protestant 
daughter of James II. Under these rulers, the two former 
enemies, England and Holland, were united. The assent of 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 37 

the new King and Queen to the Declaration of Right meant 
rapid progress in the Parliamentary control of the government. 
The early years of the seventeenth century were not so fa- 
vorable for an interest in external affairs and commercial 
enterprise as were the closing years of the sixteenth century. 
Nevertheless, so sure was the foundation and widespread the 
interest that trade increased and settlements of a permanent 
character began — and this in spite of financial extravagance 
and bad administration by England's rulers. The navy, 
which deteriorated in the first years of the century, was as- 
siduously built up by Charles I, and proved adequate under 
the Commonwealth and the Restoration for the naval wars 
with the Dutch. The internal disorders during the middle of 
the century tended to the confusion of English foreign inter- 
ests. Yet the very unsettlement at home caused emigration. 
The royal need for money led to lavish grants to speculative 
subjects and to the establishment of "wild-cat" schemes. 
Empire in any ordered progressive manner was not being 
built. It was largely despite lack of policy that expansion 
came on the heels of trade. The motives that led to settle- 
ment can best be clarified by a review of what was done 
by Englishmen in various parts of the world 

JAMESTOWN 

The first permanent colony was established in Virginia. Sir 
Walter Raleigh, who obtained from the Queen a continuation 
of the patent rights of his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gil- 
bert, attempted to colonize Virginia. It was in the year before 
the defeat of the Spanish Armada that the "lost" colony had 
been founded at Roanoke. 1 But Raleigh, who fell into ill fa- 
vor when James became King, lost his rights. The First Vir- 
ginia Charter, under which a permanent plantation took 
place, was granted in 1606. 2 The right to "make Habitation, 
Plantation, and to deduce a Colony of sundry of our People 
into that Part of America, commonly called Virginia, and 
other Parts and Territories in America, either appertaining 

1 See p. 32. 

2 It is to be found conveniently in Macdonald's Select Charters, pp. 1 ff. 



38 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

unto us, or which are not now actually possessed by any 
Christian Prince or People," was granted to a Company in- 
cluding George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, Ralegh Gilbert, 
and George Popham. There were two companies: one con- 
sisting of certain "Knights, Gentlemen, Merchants and other 
Adventurers" of London with the right to "plant" between 
thirty-four and forty-one degrees north latitude along the 
coast; the other was composed of "sundry" gentlemen of 
Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and other places with the priv- 
ilege of making settlements between thirty-eight and forty- 
five degrees north latitude. The region between the thirty- 
eighth and the forty-first parallels was common ground, the 
company first settling it to have one hundred miles of adja- 
cent seacoast. But neither company appropriated the coast 
where the grants overlapped. The charter provided for a 
Council of Virginia in England — appointed by the King — 
and councils in America. 

Article sixteen is of more than passing importance. It 
reads: "All and every the Persons, being our Subjects, which 
shall dwell and inhabit within every and any of the said sev- 
eral Colonies and Plantations, and every of their children . . . 
shall have and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises and Immunities 
within any of our Dominions ... as if they had been abiding 
and born within this our Realm of England." This remark- 
able provision foreshadowed a different colonial policy than 
the world had seen hitherto. By it Englishmen were acknowl- 
edged as free to live in England's colonies and yet retain their 
rights under the English common law. It need hardly be said 
that the progress to be made in the conflict with Charles I 
was not within the view of the monarch who granted the 
charter to Virginia. It was interpreted, nevertheless, as a 
transportation of English law and the developing constitution 
beyond the island which gave them birth. Besides, it was a 
distinct step beyond trade to permanent settlement. 

The London Company sent colonists out in the winter of 
1606-07, and they settled at a place they named Jamestown 
in May of 1607 on the banks of the James River. It is im- 
possible here to detail their trying experiences, interesting 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 39 

as they would be. Starvation, ill-considered sites for settle- 
ment, disease and dissension, all helped to bring misfortune. 
Over three fourths of the two hundred original settlers died 
in the first two years. When the Virginia Company was dis- 
solved in 1624, almost £200,000 had been expended. Why 
this prodigal waste of life and treasure? We have a hint of 
their aims in the charter, article nine of which reads in part: 
"The said several Councils . . . may . . . dig, mine and search 
for all Manner of Mines of Gold, Silver and Copper, as well 
within any part of their said several Colonies, as for the said 
Main Lands on the Backside of the same Colonies.' ' The 
King was to have twenty per cent of the gold and a fifteenth 
of the copper. 1 

It arouses compassion to read of the efforts to find treasure 
in a country we now know could not possibly fulfill the expec- 
tations of the Virginian settlers. The Order in Council for 
the guidance of the colonists directed them to explore the 
country with a band of twenty men provided with pickaxes 
to discover metals. One of the leaders took " gold " ore back 
to England in the summer of 1607, only to find it worthless. 
Yet Captain Newport returned with two goldsmiths, two re- 
finers, and a jeweler. Captain John Smith reported that in 
Virginia there was "no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, 
wash gold, refine gold, loade gold." 

Another motive for the establishment of the colony is re- 
vealed in the instructions which were prepared for the Council; 
they were directed to find a river which would be navigable 
for a long distance, especially one with a northwestern bend, 
"for in that way you shall soonest find the other sea." In 
1608 Captain Newport received private instructions to find, 
if possible, the true route to the South Sea. This quest seems 
to us absurd, as we now realize that it is a journey of fully 

1 The popular notion that Virginia was the home of gold was expressed in a 
play called Eastward Ho, written in 1605: "I tell thee golde is more plentifull in 
Virginia than copper is with us. All the chaines with which they chaine up 
their streets are massie gold; all the prisoners they take are fettered in golde, 
and for rubies and diamonds, they goe forth in holidays and gather them by the 
seashore to hang on their children's coates and sticke in their children's caps as 
commonly as our children wear saffron, gilt breeches and groates with hoales in 
them." Quoted in Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, i, 14. 



40 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

three thousand miles across the continent at the latitude of 
the James River. Yet Drake had sailed up the west coast 
past this degree ; to cross to the coast he had explored did not 
appear an impossibility to his contemporaries. Ralph Lane, 
in his account of the Roanoke colony, stated that he had been 
informed by the Indians that it required a journey of only 
thirty days to the headwaters of a river which gushed out of 
a rock so near to the other sea that the waves of the latter 
very often dashed over into the river in time of storm. Lane 
traveled one hundred and sixty miles inland searching for 
this curious physical phenomenon, which even the men of 
that day should have realized was impossible. 

Gradually the true worth of the colony was understood. 
Captain John Smith urged the saner and more prosaic task 
of agriculture, but the possibilities of the land were realized 
but slowly. By 1609 about forty acres had been cleared and 
planted to corn. Not until 1612 did the colonists begin the 
cultivation of tobacco. John Rolfe, the husband of Poca- 
hontas, started the cultivation of the weed with a small patch 
for his own use. In this modest fashion began the crop which 
has been the staple product of Virginia for two hundred and 
seventy-five years. With the profitable growth of tobacco 
the permanency of the colony was assured, since the demand 
for tobacco was increasing in Europe despite the severe re- 
strictions placed upon its use in some countries. 

The adaptability of Virginian soil for tobacco culture 
shaped decisively the future character of the colony. To- 
bacco required virgin soil for its production in perfection. 
As artificial fertilizers were unknown, the effect was greatly 
to extend the bounds of a plantation beyond the ground ac- 
tually used at one time. This meant a system of large plan- 
tations, each standing by itself with its own laborers and me- 
chanics, a system that developed an independent self-reliant 
type with the inevitable growth of a landed aristocracy. Silk, 
rice, indigo, and wheat were cultivated to some extent, but 
rarely for export, as the profit on tobacco was much greater. 
It was not long before Virginia became a great colony along 
the shores of the Chesapeake and up the numerous rivers. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 41 

Had it not been for tobacco, Jamestown would probably have 
been but one more fruitless attempt at colonization. 

Virginia enjoyed an exceptional measure of self-govern- 
ment. In 1609 a second charter was granted, which dif- 
fered from the first in leaving the whole control practically 
in the hands of the stockholders of the Company. Three 
years later, another charter was issued by King James, 
allowing still greater powers to the Company, even to that 
of holding meetings of the stockholders under the name of 
the "Great and General Courts." Shortly after this, the 
Company went into the hands of Puritan leaders, the most 
prominent of whom was Sir Edwin Sandys. He had been 
a radical reformer in England, and was inclined to experi- 
ment in this direction in the new American colony. The 
first Governor under this regime, Sir George Yeardley, 
called an Assembly to meet at Jamestown in 1619 composed 
of two burgesses from each place and plantation. It exer- 
cised privileges much like the body in England that was 
causing James so much discomfort. 

The Company was overthrown in 1624, owing to the King's 
dissatisfaction with the control of the Company by a group 
connected with the opposition party in Parliament, and on 
account of the "slow progress of the colony and its exclu- 
sive devotion to tobacco." 1 Charles I, who became King in 
1625, was too busy at home to trouble about colonial matters, 
and the colony was about as free as before. In 1627, at the 
instance of Charles, a General Assembly was called to con- 
sider the tobacco trade with England. This is interesting, as 
showing a recognition by the King of representative institu- 
tions. During the Commonwealth period in England, Vir- 
ginia was given even greater freedom, governing itself 
through an elected Assembly, which, in turn, selected the 
Governor and his Council. This large allowance of self- 
government served later as a dangerous precedent. 

1 Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 305. 



42 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

NEW ENGLAND 

The story of the early settlement of "Northern Virginia" 
— that part allotted to the Plymouth Company — is in 
great contrast to the record of the establishment of James- 
town. The Plymouth Company sent out a fleet under 
Ralegh Gilbert and George Popham to what is now called 
Maine. After a year, however, the unpromising settlement 
was abandoned. In 1620 a new charter was granted for the 
territory between forty and forty-eight degrees north latitude 
under the name of New England. The first settlement to 
take permanent hold there was the plantation at Plymouth 
in 1620. But it did not have a commercial aim. This group 
of men and women were impelled to cross the sea by the 
desire for freedom of worship. 

The well-known story needs but a brief treatment. In 
the reign of Elizabeth radical Protestant sects had developed, 
which were unwilling to conform to the rules of the Estab- 
lished Church. The Puritans desired to stay within the 
Church and purify it; in consequence, there was constant 
opposition by them to alleged Roman Catholic tendencies. 
Some were so violently opposed to the "abuses" practiced by 
the Church that they left its communion. Various names 
were given them, e.g., Brownists, Independents, Separatists. 
One of these radical groups was located at Scrooby in Not- 
tinghamshire, where they were ministered to by John Robin- 
son of Norwich. Because of persecution they sought asylum 
first in Holland and later across the seas westward. 

The Mayflower left Plymouth, England, in the autumn of 
1620, bringing this body of devoted men and women to the 
coast of Massachusetts, where they established New Ply- 
mouth. They had made arrangements with the Virginia 
Company for the right to settle on their grant, but, as they 
landed outside the bounds of that territory, they had to 
make other provision for the government of their colony. 
This was done by the brief Mayflower Compact made on 
shipboard. l The Plymouth Pilgrims were subjected to much 

1 The Mayflower Compact was but a temporary agreement to be used until 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 43 

hardship. Starvation stared them in the face much of the 
time, for they were a group unaccustomed to pioneer life. It 
was only later that they found their salvation in a develop- 
ing fur trade. 

Soon other colonies were established in New England. 
Charles I, as we have found, was having trouble with the 
Puritans from the time that he became King in 1625. By 
1629, the conflict was serious, and eleven years followed in 
which Charles tried to rule England without a Parliament. 
This caused great dissatisfaction among the Puritans, to 
whom the New World seemed to furnish a refuge from 
tyranny. Some Nonconformists obtained from the New 
England Council, in 1628, a grant of land extending three 
miles north of the Merrimac to three miles south of the 
Charles and westward to the South Sea. In 1630, over one 
thousand people, including the Governor and officers of the 
Company, left for New England. It was the beginning of 
what is known as the ' ' Great Emigration. ' ' Boston, Charles- 
town, Roxbury, Dorchester, Watertown, and Cambridge 
were established. As the High-Church party continued to 
control English affairs during the whole of the next dec- 
ade, emigration went on apace. During the years pre- 
ceding the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640, twenty 
thousand colonists are said to have settled in New England. 
This was a remarkable movement. Hardly anything like 
this transplantation of people to a new home had ever oc- 
curred before. A veritable New England was being formed 
across the sea. 

The temper and government of the new colonies was akin 
to that developing in England. Powers were given to free- 
men or stockholders of the corporation. Much emphasis, 

the government at home had signified its wishes. When some of the hired 
laborers on the ship realized that the vessel was landing outside the territory of 
the Virginia Company, they threatened to break loose. The Compact, signed 
by forty-one persons of whom seven were hired workmen, has been lauded as an 
early example of a written constitution. The signers combined "into a civil 
body politic, for our better ordering and preservation." They agreed "to en- 
act, constitute and frame such just and equal laws ... as shall be thought most 
meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise 
all due submission and obedience.'' 



44 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

also, was put on religious conformity as a result of the pre- 
vailing interest in religious matters at the time. In 1631, the 
number of freemen was enlarged to one hundred and sixteen, 
but only Puritan church members had the franchise. Three 
years later, representative government was established, 
members being chosen by the various towns to act as a Com- 
mittee of the General Court. In Plymouth a representative 
system similar to that in Massachusetts Bay was instituted 
in 1638. We must not infer that this was democracy. The 
freemen were few, probably numbering not more than one 
fifth of the number of grown men. Nor was freedom of wor- 
ship permitted. Although the New England colonists had 
left England to exercise freedom in this regard, they were not 
inclined to grant it in their turn. 

Internal trouble could not but come with such limitations 
on individual liberty. Roger Williams, minister of the 
church at Salem, was extreme in his Separatist views, and, in 
addition, aroused opposition by declaring that the colonists 
should have purchased their lands from the Indians. In 
consequence, he was compelled to leave; ultimately he made 
his home in Rhode Island. Anne Hutchinson, a woman of 
remarkable intellect, caused similar trouble to the leaders. 
It is not altogether clear what was the matter with her be- 
liefs, as Winthrop at her trial refused to give the causes that 
satisfied the court she should be banished. The expulsion of 
Roger Williams and of Anne Hutchinson led to the founding 
of Rhode Island. There the land was "purchased " from the 
Indians and freedom of worship was granted to the inhab- 
itants. Williams has won lasting fame by his pioneer advo- 
cacy and practice in the Providence Plantations of the sepa- 
ration of Church and State. 

The latter half of the thirties saw the beginnings of Connec- 
ticut. The Massachusetts Bay colonies were the sources for 
these settlements as well as that of Rhode Island. It was of 
their own free will, however, that Massachusetts men went to 
the Connecticut valley. Hartford, Windsor, and Wethers- 
field were founded in 1635 and 1636. Saybrook, named from 
Lord Brook and Lord Say and Sele, who had obtained a 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 45 

grant of this region, was placed at the mouth of the Connec- 
ticut River to safeguard the English in their new possessions. 
In 1638, New Haven was founded. Settlements took shape, 
also, during this time in the present states of New Hamp- 
shire and Maine to the north of Massachusetts Bay. 

At last civil war between Charles and Parliament broke 
out in 1642, and the chaos in England led to a closer union of 
the New England colonies. Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, 
Connecticut, and New Haven united in a confederation, 
which illustrated the virility and independence of the group. 
One of the causes for the organization was found in the "sad 
distractions" in England. Another cause for a combination 
of forces was the Indian menace, for the natives had com- 
mitted "sundry insolencies and outrages upon severall 
Plantations of the English" and had "of late combined 
against us." A third cause for union lay in the dangerous 
proximity of the people of "severall Nations and strange 
languages, which hereafter may prove injurious to us." They 
referred to the French and the Dutch. There was to be a 
"perpetual league of friendship," all wars were to be borne 
by all parts of the confederation, and two commissioners 
were chosen from each of the four colonies "being all in 
Church-fellowship with us" to form a group to decide on 
common matters. The combination, although it did not in- 
clude Rhode Island and Maine, served a good purpose. 

New Netherland, as the territory between Virginia and 
New England was called, had been occupied by the Dutch 
under the energetic leadership of the Dutch West India 
Company. This settlement was a serious menace to Eng- 
lish control of the coast and to colonial unity, as it separated 
Virginia from New England. Its loss by the Dutch will be 
recounted on a later page. 1 

NEWFOUNDLAND AND HUDSON BAY 

Newfoundland was not a very satisfactory field for coloni- 
zation, although Gilbert, as early as 1583, had taken formal 
possession of it for England. In the next year, Hakluyt ad- 

1 See pp. 66 ff, 



46 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

vised that it be held and that England levy taxes on foreign 
vessels fishing there. At this time fish was one of the princi- 
pal elements of English diet, but the country had been de- 
pendent on foreigners, especially the Dutch, for a large part 
of the fish used. The English soon had a permanent hold of 
the island in spite of growing French competition, possibly 
because they were accustomed to remain there and cure their 
fish. The French, on the contrary, cured their fish at home. 
In 1610 a company was formed to colonize Newfoundland. 
But much trouble soon arose between the fishermen and the 
English colonists over fishing rights of various kinds. The 
fishing, however, continually grew in importance, for by 
1640 over ten thousand mariners were employed in these 
fisheries, and men-of-war were sent to protect the fishing 
craft from pirates and foreigners. Much of this fish went to 
southern Europe in exchange for products desired by Eng- 
lishmen. Thus Newfoundland early became a valued over- 
sea dominion. The Golden Fleece, published by Vaughan in 
1626, quaintly expressed the general opinion: "This is our 
Colchos, where the Golden Fleece flourisheth on the backes of 
Neptunes sheepe, continually to be shorne. This is Great 
Britaines Indies, never to be exhausted dry." x 

To the north of the French acquisitions on the St. Law- 
rence the English continued their efforts at finding a water- 
way through the continent. 2 The account of this search does 
not include a record of colonization, but later, with the de- 
velopment of the fur trade, it led to important results. The 
voyages of the Elizabethans have already been mentioned. 
Gilbert wrote an elaborate Discourse of a Discovery for a New 
Passage to Cataia to encourage the hunt for the northwest 
route. John Davis made three voyages about the time of 
the defeat of the Spanish Armada in search of a passage to 
Cathay, and his name remains on our maps attached to 

1 Quoted in Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, p. 294. 

2 These efforts, in which the East India Company took an interest, seem to 
have been the result of a feeling that by reaching northern climes a better mar- 
ket for "English clothes and kersies" would be found, and eastern products 
obtained without a large exportation of English bullion. See Cunningham, 
The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, u, 259. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 47 

the great strait between Greenland and Canada. Of even 
greater importance was the work of Henry Hudson. He 
made several voyages for English companies before he was 
employed by the Dutch East India Company in 1609; it was 
for them that this Englishman discovered the Hudson River 
and sailed as far as Albany in the hope of finding an outlet to 
the South Sea. In 1610, Hudson, who was again working for 
the English, sailed in search of a northwest passage. He 
discovered Hudson Strait and passed into the great bay be- 
yond, which bears his name. His vessel was frozen in, and 
the winter was spent under severe conditions. In June, 1611, 
a part of the crew mutinied and Hudson, his son, and several 
others were set adrift in a small boat; they were never again 
heard from. 

Two years later, Sir Thomas Button entered Hudson Bay. 
He thoroughly explored it, and named the western side of 
the bay (where he vainly sought an outlet) " Hope's Check." 
He also discovered the Nelson River. In 1615-16, William 
Baffin made two important voyages. The great bay known 
under Baffin's name was discovered beyond Davis Strait, and 
the two sounds leading from it westward were found and 
named. Fox Channel extending north from Hudson Bay 
received its name from "Northwest" Fox, who located it 
in 1631. 

The first stage in Arctic discovery ended in the early part 
of the seventeenth century. These daring explorers added 
materially to geographical knowledge, although they failed 
to find a way around the continent. Nowhere in all the new 
fields of English interest was the intrepidity of English sea- 
manship better revealed. Compensation, as elsewhere, was 
found in trade. Indeed, in 1612, the "Company of the Mer- 
chants of London Discoverers of the Northwest Passage" 
was incorporated; two years later the East India Company 
helped in the search. It was not until 1670 that the famous 
Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated. It had the sole 
right to trade with the natives on the shores of Hudson Bay. 
The growth of the Company was slow, as there was difficulty 
with the French in the St. Lawrence basin. When New 



48 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

France was added to England's Empire in 1763, this great 
Company became very powerful. Its later progress is a 
part of the history of Canada. 1 

THE WEST INDIES 

During this century, also, much work of great importance 
was done for the British Empire in the islands to the south. 
The old colonial Empire had few more important parts than 
the British West Indian possessions. With the addition of 
other and vaster territories serving England in a similar way, 
the West Indies have not retained their former position. 

In the seventeenth century the location of the West Indies 
served to make them bases for encroaching on Spanish trade. 
The larger islands, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Porto Rico, and 
Jamaica, had been occupied by the Spanish. The mainland, 
however, was so much more valuable as a field to be exploited 
that the Spanish paid little attention to most of the smaller 
islands. A glance at the map makes it clear that the Lesser 
Antilles form a sort of half -moon extending southward from 
Porto Rico to the South American mainland. Of these 
Lesser Antilles the northern are called the Leeward Islands 
and the southern the Windwards. At the extreme upper 
corner of the half-moon are the Virgin Islands, owned since 
1917 by the United States. North of Cuba and Santo Do- 
mingo lie the Bahamas, and on the route from Europe to 
the West Indies are the Bermuda Islands, some five hun- 
dred miles off the coast of the Carolinas. 

Sir George Somers, by whose name the Bermudas are 
sometimes known, was on board the Sea Adventure in 1609, 
when it formed one of a fleet of nine vessels bound for the 
Virginia colony. A hurricane sent one ship to the bottom 
and cast the Sea Adventure on the Bermudas. In May of 
the next year the survivors of this vessel reached Virginia. 
In 1610 an account of the shipwreck was published, enti- 
tled A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the lie of 
Devils. The reference by Shakespeare in the Tempest, writ- 
ten in 1610 or 1611, to the " still vexed Bermoothes" proba- 

1 See pp. 405 ff. 



50 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

bly refers to this famous shipwreck. In 1612 the islands 
were settled for the first time, and three years later a com- 
pany was formed for the plantation of the " Somer Islands." 1 
Early in their history, tobacco became the staple crop. The 
colonizing company opposed this exclusive interest, as the 
tobacco was of low grade; on the contrary, they wished wines, 
figs, sugar, and olives produced there. But efforts to estab- 
lish these products proved unsuccessful. Curiously enough, 
the Bermudas served for some time as a source of provisions 
for other colonies. Virginia and New England sent there for 
foodstuffs. But as the large colonies became self-support- 
ing, the Bermudas declined in importance. Their strategic 
value, however, has been recognized from the very first. 

The Bahamas were not of great value to England in these 
early years, though settlers went to them in the first half of 
the seventeenth century. Their chief use during this period 
was as a safe retreat for pirates. In the Lesser Antilles, how- 
ever, the English took a great interest. Thomas Warner began 
the colonization of St. Christopher (commonly known as St. 
Kitts) in 1623, and Barbados was settled about the same time. 
Within a few years Nevis (the birthplace of Alexander Hamil- 
ton), Antigua, and Montserrat were settled by Englishmen. 
In 1627 the Earl of Carlisle was granted these and the other 
principal islands of the Lesser Antilles, and from this time 
on their occupation proceeded rapidly. They were found to 
be valuable sources for tropical products. At first tobacco 
was the staple, but by the middle of the century sugar-cane 
had been successfully introduced. Indigo and cotton, fustic 
and ginger, were valued exports as well. Population in the 
group increased at a rapid rate, for in 1639 there were twenty 
thousand planters on the Earl of Carlisle's islands. 

Of the group, Barbados occupied the most conspicuous 
place. In 1636 there were six thousand settlers there, and in 
the latter part of the same century, the population was as 

1 The charter called the islands after Sir George Somers, but the name of 
their Spanish discoverer, Juan Bermudez, has persisted. Sir George Somers 
returned to the islands from Virginia in 1610 and died there shortly after- 
ward. His body was taken to England but his heart was buried in the 
islands at a spot near the scene of the memorable shipwreck of 1609. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 51 

high as one hundred and twenty to the square mile, or about 
thirty thousand. This rapid increase was owing partly to the 
unsettled conditions in England, but in greater measure to 
the development of the sugar industry. It is interesting to 
find that the inhabitants of the Barbados were as keenly con- 
cerned in self-government as were the English colonies of 
Virginia and New England. In the reign of Charles I and 
later under the Commonwealth the independent spirit of the 
colonists was the cause of considerable friction. 

The island of Jamaica is England's largest insular posses- 
sion in the Caribbean. It was captured from Spain in 1655 
during Cromwell's rule. The English had come into in- 
evitable conflict with Spain when they had occupied the 
West Indian islands. Massacres, reprisals, and counter- 
attacks had occurred. The Protector determined finally to 
make a really vital attack on the Spanish power in the West 
Indies. Admiral Penn, father of the founder of Pennsyl- 
vania, and General Venables were sent against Santo Do- 
mingo, but the attack on that Spanish possession miserably 
failed. They then turned for revenge to an attack on Ja- 
maica and captured it in 1655. * A garrison was left and Crom- 
well set about peopling the island. He endeavored to induce 
settlers to go from New England and the Windward Islands, 
and in addition men and women from Great Britain were 
sought for transportation. The population of Jamaica was 
nondescript, the planters and merchants uniting piracy and 
privateering with more legitimate pursuits. During much 
of the century it was a chief resort for the buccaneers and 
served in very truth as a " sharp thorn in the side of the 
Spaniard." 

1 For an interesting account of the expedition see Clarendon's well-known 
and contemporary History of the Rebellion and Civil War in England. He began 
to write it about the middle of the seventeenth century and it was first pub- 
lished in 1702. He wrote of Jamaica : " The English revenged themselves upon 
a neighbor island, called Jamaica." Of the purpose of the occupation, he de- 
clares that a garrison was left " to fortify and plant in this island, a place fruitful 
in itself, and abounding in many good provisions, and a perpetual sharp thorn 
in the side of the Spaniard." (Oxford, 1839, vn, 233-34.) 



52 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



THE BUCCANEERS 

The buccaneers of the seventeenth century were the suc- 
cessors of the Elizabethan sea-dogs, who so relentlessly 
"singed the king of Spain's beard." Unregulated naval 
operations had continued against Spain from the days of 
Drake. In fact it was not until the close of the century that 
piracy was to any degree suppressed. Both the English and 
the French were only too glad to harry Spanish shipping and 
seaports by giving tacit encouragement to these " brethren 
of the coast." This was especially true of England after 
Charles I's breach with Spain in 1623. Not only was semi- 
legal piracy encouraged, but there was also considerable colo- 
nial activity in a part of the world that had hitherto been 
largely a Spanish monopoly. This double interest serves as 
the connecting link between the exploits of the Elizabethan 
seamen and the solid establishment of British power in the 
West Indies with the capture of Jamaica in 1655. 

There was an English settlement on the island of St. 
Christopher as early as 1623. French colonists soon joined 
the English on this island, which for a time was jointly oc- 
cupied. Nevis was colonized by Englishmen in 1628, but in 
the next year the two islands suffered from Spanish attacks. 
In consequence, a more convenient center for buccaneering 
was found off the northwest coast of Santo Domingo in the 
main course of the Caribbean trade. There the island of 
Tortuga, or Association, as it was renamed, was seized in 
1630. It was already the resort of rovers of all nationalities, 
for it had many attractions. Tortuga was near the Wind- 
ward Passage, its mountainous interior abounded in wild 
hogs, and herds of cattle were on the neighboring island of 
Santo Domingo. It was settled by the Providence Island 
Company, which had already begun to colonize Old Provi- 
dence Island off Nicaragua. Tortuga became the center of 
a thriving trade, not because of the natural wealth of the 
island — it is now uninhabited — but on account of its con- 
venience as a refitment and victualing-station for merchants 
and freebooters on one of the main routes of trade. In 1635, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 53 

Tortuga was captured by the Spanish and finally in 1640 by 
the French. 1 Fortunately for the West Indian pirates Ja- 
maica was obtained from Spain in 1655 with the assistance 
of the buccaneers, who by this time had a formidable merce- 
nary fleet at the command of any enemy of Spain, provided 
they were allowed to share in the plunder. 

The most prominent leader of the buccaneers during this 
time was Henry Morgan. Born in Wales, he was sold as a 
servant to Barbados, whence he escaped to Jamaica. He 
rapidly rose to prominence among the buccaneers, becoming 
admiral of their fleet in 1667. With Jamaica as a center, he 
carried out many successful expeditions. In 1668, he was 
sent by Modyford, Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, to at- 
tack Cuba. After a successful expedition to Cuba, he made 
a daring attack on Porto Bello on the Isthmus. In the next 
year he led a strong expedition against Maracaibo, which was 
successfully sacked and barbarously treated. In 1671 Mor- 
gan even went across the Isthmus and captured the city of 
Panama, to the almost utter paralysis of Spanish commerce. 
For this exploit of buccaneering warfare he was taken to 
England for trial in 1672. Nothing better illustrates the 
English attitude at this time toward buccaneering when 
Spain's colonies were the victims than the treatment ac- 
corded Morgan. Instead of being hanged, he was knighted, 
and two years later returned to Jamaica as Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces in 
the colony. The remainder of his life was spent in quiet on 
this island home, where he was occasionally Acting-Governor. 

The buccaneers by their operations revealed once again 
Spanish weakness, and contributed by their exploits to the 
establishment of French, Dutch, and English colonies in the 
West Indies. These ' ' devils of the sea ' ' disappeared with the 
close of the century, when France and Spain were once again 
friends, and French and English were enemies. Growing 
national navies also helped to bring about the decline of 

1 For these activities see in particular A. P. Newton's The Colonizing Activi- 
ties of the English Puritans — The Last Phase of the Elizabethan Struggle urith 
Spain. 



£4 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

buccaneering. The famous Captain Kidd, who carried on 
the buccaneering tradition, was a generation too late. He 
was brought to England in 1700 to be tried — as Morgan 
had been twenty-five years before — but instead of being 
knighted, he was hanged. 

In treating the West Indies we must consider another part 
of the empire-building business in the seventeenth century. 
The settlement of white men in tropical countries and the 
introduction of crops requiring a large amount of hand- 
labor resulted in the introduction of slavery. One method 
of procuring labor was by transportation — the shipment of 
England's outcast population to the colonies. The abolition 
of gilds in England, along with the rapid change in the condi- 
tions of the working classes, had led to much unemployment. 
The famous Elizabethan Poor Law was inadequate and a 
solution of domestic difficulties was found in transportation. 
Many went out as indentured servants. In addition, the 
doors of English prisons were opened. Waifs and strays of 
the larger cities were gathered in or kidnaped and used as 
laborers. For example, the London authorities turned over 
hundreds to the Virginia Company. Jamaica received large 
additions to its population by transportation at the order of 
Cromwell, by whom a " thousand Irish girls" and "male and 
female " vagabonds were sent out. The settlement of Georgia 
from debtors' prisons is well known. This lamentable phase 
of colonization did not cease with the seventeenth century; 
we shall meet it again when considering the settlement of 
Australia. 

A more satisfactory way of obtaining laborers was to kid- 
nap or purchase negroes in Africa. Hawkins' voyages for 
this purpose have already been described. 1 It was natural 
that negroes should be used in English as well as in Spanish 
colonies where they had proved a profitable form of labor. 
There was an almost complete lack of sensitiveness to this 
nefarious commerce. New England, where the slaves were 
not profitable chattels, was as callous as Virginia or the West 
Indies, and carried on an unscrupulous trade. In 1619 the 

1 See pp. 29 ff. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF EMPIRE IN THE WEST 55 

negro was introduced into Virginia. Yet by the end of the 
century there were only six thousand negroes in that colony. 
It was in the West Indies that the African was most valued. 
Probably it is no exaggeration of the extent of the slave- 
trade to state that there was an annual average shipment of 
twenty thousand negroes to the West Indies from Africa 
during the closing years of the seventeenth century. In the 
early part of the century, the carriers were largely Dutch 
vessels, but by the close of the century this trade had be- 
come a British monopoly. Indeed, the Treaty of Utrecht in 
1713 gave the English the contract for supplying the Spanish 
colonies as well. Englishmen became, to their discredit, the 
chief slave-traders until public sentiment brought the traffic 
to an end early in the nineteenth century. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The beginnings of the English colonial system have received wide treat- 
ment. The economic aspects are treated briefly in W. Cunningham, An 
Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects, vol. n (Cambridge, 
1910), as well as in his larger work already mentioned. An important volume 
is G. L. Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660 (New York, 
1908) . For the beginnings of Virginia see P. A. Bruce, Economic History of 
Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols., New York, 1907). The de- 
velopment of the American colonies is fully treated in Channing, History of 
the United States, vol. i, chapters vi-xiv, and by the English historian J. A. 
Doyle, in his volumes Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas, The Puritan 
Colonies, The Colonies under the House of Hanover, and The Middle Colonies 
(London, 1882-1907). An authoritative American treatment is H. L. 
Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (3 vols., New 
York, 1904, 1907). For another English account there is The American 
Colonies, 1588-1763, the first volume of A. Wyatt Tilby's "The English 
People Overseas." For a brief American treatment see C. L. Becker, The 
Beginnings of the American People (Boston, 1915). A comprehensive 
consideration of the colonial activity of the European nations in North 
America as a whole is to be found in H. E. Bolton and T. M. Marshall, 
The Colonization of North America, 1492-1783 (New York, 1920). 

The West Indian colonies are considered in Sir Charles Lucas, West In- 
dies (Oxford, 1905), in the "Historical Geography of the British Colonies," 
F. W. Pitman, The Development of the British West Indies, 1700-1768 (New 
Haven, 1917), and A. P. Newton, The Colonizing Activities of the English 
Puritans (New Haven, 1914). 

One of the best expositions of the colonial ideals of the time is George 
Peckham's pamphlet (in Hakluyt's The Principal Voyages of the English 
Nation, Everyman's Edition, vi, 42 ff.), under the title A discourse of the 
necessitie and commoditie of planting English colonies upon the North partes 
of America, 



CHAPTER V 

THE COMMERCIAL RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 

We have found that the English were able to colonize in 
America along a coast of considerable extent with practically 
no interference. But when they entered upon the waters of 
the Far East, the penetration could not be peaceful, for other 
nations had preceded England to that part of the world. 
The courageous Portuguese had found the sea-route around 
Africa and thereby had captured the trade of Asia. Early in 
the sixteenth century, they had founded factories on the Mal- 
abar coast of India. In order to hamper Arabian trade, So- 
kotra and Aden on the Red Sea route had been taken, and 
Ormuz on the Persian Gulf was captured to prevent goods 
going to Europe by way of Bagdad. Very early this enter- 
prising nation secured Malacca and the control of the Spice 
Islands, and by the middle of the sixteenth century they had 
developed commercial relations with China and Japan. The 
upshot of their work amounted to this, that for the whole of 
the sixteenth century the eastern trade was a Portuguese 
monopoly. This position, altogether out of proportion to 
the resources and importance of Portugal, was destined soon 
to be challenged. 

In 1580 Portugal was united with Spain under one ruler and 
the two countries remained as one until 1640. This union, by 
which Spain became mistress of the East as well as the West, 
came at a crucial point in colonial development, as it was 
effected at a time when Spain was suffering from the severe 
attacks of its European enemies. Drake had just completed 
his voyage around the world when the two colonial empires 
were combined, and eight years later England was to win 
the freedom of the sea by the defeat of the Spanish Armada. 

THE DUTCH AND THE FAR EAST 

An even more serious danger was Holland. The Low 
Countries, as Belgium and Holland were then commonly 




6J •*« S» ■§ 



58 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

known, had become a part of the great Empire of Charles V, 
the father of Philip II, and they had remained in the hands of 
Philip and of Spain after his father's death. No two peoples 
could have been more unlike than the Spanish and the Dutch. 
The Dutch were strongly Protestant, while Spain was the 
most Catholic country of Europe. Besides, the Netherland- 
er were an industrious and prosperous business population, 
and their great cities were the distributing centers for the 
goods of all the nations. The Dutch were also a natural 
maritime people, who by the end of the sixteenth century had 
already developed an important merchant marine. Even 
the carrying of the spices of the East had come into their 
hands before the union of Spain and Portugal in 1580. Por- 
tugal, who had control of the Spice Islands, did not attempt 
to distribute the spices to Europe; the Portuguese brought 
them to Lisbon only, whence they were transshipped by the 
merchants of the Netherlands to the various ports of the 
Continent, especially to Antwerp, at this time the great 
maritime emporium for the goods of the East. 

Philip II made every effort to reap a rich financial profit 
from the commercial activity of the Low Countries, an atti- 
tude that quite naturally was resented by the Netherlanders. 
The addition of a bigoted religious policy for the Low Coun- 
tries led to a revolt which was destined to continue for many 
years. It is not necessary to recount the progress of the con- 
flict, in which the Dutch were usually the victors at sea and 
the conquered on land. They suffered terribly under the 
oppressive rule of the Duke of Alva, but were united for a 
determined resistance by William the Silent. Gradually the 
resistance of the Netherlands, which was later strengthened 
by the aid of England, grew stronger and stronger. It was 
not until 1609 that an end came to the hostilities. In 1648, 
the independence of the Netherlands was acknowledged by 
the Peace of Westphalia. 

The union of Spain and Portugal in 1580 came at a vital 
point in this conflict, for it put into Spanish hands the control 
of the eastern spice trade. Naturally this was a serious blow 
to the Dutch, who were accustomed to transship the goods 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 59 

of the East from Lisbon. In consequence, the Dutch deter- 
mined to go to the East themselves in order to bring the 
goods to Europe. They felt also that, by harassing the 
Spanish on the sea and especially by tapping their sources of 
wealth, they might bring a more favorable decision to the 
struggle in the Low Countries. It was out of these condi- 
tions that the Dutch began with great vigor the building of 
a colonial empire. Englishmen entered the East about the 
same time, but, as England was not an open enemy of Spain, 
their work in the Far East was by no means so aggressive as 
that of the Dutch. Therefore, before we proceed to consider 
English interests in the Indies, it will be necessary to sketch 
briefly the rise of the Dutch Empire, England's chief rival 
during the seventeenth century. 

In 1597, three Dutch ships returned from the East with 
valuable cargoes. It is not strange that a few years later, in 
1602, the Dutch East India Company was founded with the 
enormous capital of over two hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars. It was a private company, but semi-national in 
character. Sixty ships were sent out by the Dutch in the 
eight years following the founding of the Company. In 1609 
the important island of Amboina, in the southern part of the 
Spice Islands, was taken by the Dutch. The next year, the 
Portuguese fleet was burned in front of Malacca in the Ma- 
lay Peninsula. In 1615 the defeat of a Spanish-Portuguese 
fleet, commanded by the Spanish Governor of the Philip- 
pines, secured to the Dutch a firm hold of the Spice Islands. 
Their method of occupation was to make treaties with the 
native chiefs in the Moluccas, by which the natives were 
guaranteed from attack by the Portuguese, and in turn the 
Dutch obtained the right to erect factories and to monopolize 
the trade. 

By 1619 the Dutch were so strongly established in the 
East that a capital was created for the Dutch East Indies in 
the island of Java, and named Batavia. A governor-general 
of the Indies was appointed, and there were subordinate gov- 
ernors and a strong naval force. A series of able governors, 
culminating in Van Diemen (1636-45), gave the Dutch a firm 



60 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

hold. In the early years of his governorship Van Diemen 
began to wrest the island of Ceylon from the Portuguese, and 
he gradually brought Sumatra and Borneo under Dutch con- 
trol. A footing was also gained on the coasts. The climax 
came in 1640 with the capture of the Portuguese strong- 
hold of Malacca. This strategic point, which commanded 
the strait separating Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, 
gave the Dutch a control not only of the trade with 
the Spice Islands, but also of that with China and Japan. 
They developed a large commerce in Chino-Japanese waters. 
Formosa became important for its tea, which the Dutch in- 
troduced to Europe, and for over a century no other nation 
had intercourse with Japan. 

In western Asia they were as successful as in the East 
Indies. A regular trade was carried on with Mocha, from 
which coffee was first brought in 1616. In order to have a 
halfway house to this extended field of the Far East, Cape 
Colony was founded in 1651. Not only in South Africa, but 
in many other places no longer in their possession have 
Dutch names adhered as witnesses to the wide range of Dutch 
activity. Cape Horn, New Zealand, the Gulfs of Van Die- 
men and Carpentaria, Tasmania, are suggestive of the work 
of the Dutch during the seventeenth century. When the 
Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648, the United Prov- 
inces were recognized as free from Spain, and they were con- 
firmed in the possession of the territories taken from Portu- 
gal. Moreover, the trade of the East and West Indies was 
declared to be free. 

Thus on the weakness of Portugal and the mistakes of 
Philip II was founded a new colonial empire. Most of the 
East Indies continue to-day in the possession of the Dutch — 
all, excepting the Philippines, which belong to the United 
States, parts of Borneo and New Guinea in British hands, 
and half of the small island of Timor, which is all that is left 
to Portugal in that part of the East where the Portuguese 
pioneered so successfully. 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 61 



THE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY 

As we turn to the work of the English, we have no such 
rapid and powerful movement to record. The English were 
not so ready to go ahead as the Dutch, but, if they began 
more modestly, they were distancing their Dutch rivals by the 
end of the century. As early as 1579, the English became 
interested in India from the letters of Thomas Stevens, who 
had gone to Goa. Four years later, three Englishmen started 
overland for India and sent home interesting accounts of 
their travels. We have already noted the embassy of Wil- 
liam Harburn to Turkey in 1579 for the purpose of obtaining 
trading rights in the Levant. In 1591 the first venture was 
made by three ships under Captains Raymond and Lancas- 
ter, but only one of the vessels accomplished the voyage. A 
second attempt under Captain Benjamin Wood, who bore a 
letter from Queen Elizabeth to the Emperor of China, re- 
sulted in the total disappearance of the expedition. Finally, 
on the last day of the sixteenth century the famous English 
East India Company was formed. This organization, which 
began as a commercial concern, gradually became a powerful 
medium for imperial growth, in much the same way as its 
Dutch rival. To it is due the acquisition of British India. 

In 1599 the price of pepper on the English market was 
more than doubled by the Dutch monopoly. Various mer- 
chants, in consequence, petitioned for and received a charter 
from Elizabeth for trading in the East. This cooperative 
group of London merchants was a private organization sanc- 
tioned by the state and no such semi-national company as the 
Dutch East India Company founded two years later. The 
charter was granted to over two hundred persons under the 
name of the "Company of Merchants of London trading 
into the East Indies." The Company had a right to trade 
anywhere between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of 
Magellan for a period of fifteen years without competition on 
the part of other English merchants. The Company also had 
a monopoly on the sale of its goods as well as various conces- 
sions regarding customs duties and the export of bullion. 



62 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The privileges of the trading organization were made more 
liberal about the end of the first decade by the indefinite ex- 
tension of its rights with the provision that if the trade of the 
Company were not advantageous to the kingdom, its priv- 
ileges were to be withdrawn on three years' notice. Each 
voyage until 1612 was undertaken as a joint-stock venture by 
members of the Company, no single merchant entering on 
private trading. Under this plan subscriptions were ob- 
tained for a voyage to the Indies; the money was used to 
purchase merchandise, fit out the vessels, and serve as cash 
for buying goods in the East. On the return a division was 
made to the investors. In 1612, instead of having separate 
funds for each voyage, a joint-stock for all purposes for a 
limited period was made the rule. The chief officers of the 
Company were a governor, deputy-governor, and a board of 
twenty-four members, all elected annually. 

The East India Company's beginnings illustrate what has 
already become evident, as the first steps in English coloniza- 
tion were considered in America, that it was largely the pri- 
vate initiative of men interested in commercial expansion 
that led to the beginnings of empire. The first Governor of the 
East India Company, Sir Thomas Smythe, is a typical illus- 
tration; he is more than that, for, if any one is entitled to the 
name of Founder of the British Empire, it would be this Eng- 
lish haberdasher. In 1580, he had become a member of the 
Haberdashers' Company and also of the Skinners' Company. 
His grandfather, Sir Andrew Judd, was one of the founders of 
the Muscovy Company. Smythe himself was interested in 
this field of trade, and in 1604 was a special ambassador to 
the Czar of Russia from whom he obtained extensive priv- 
ileges for the English. As a member of the East India Com- 
pany he was interested in the northwest passage as well; his 
name was given to Smith's Sound by Baffin. In 1609 he was 
largely influential in obtaining the charter of the Virginia 
Company, of which organization he was treasurer until 1619. 
For several years Smythe was one of the chief commissioners 
of the navy and a governor of the Somers Islands (Bermuda) 
Company. In addition to all these varied interests, he was 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 63 

the Governor of the East India Company from its origin 
until 1621, excepting for the years 1606 and 1607. 

The first voyage for the Company was made by four ves- 
sels and a supply-ship, with James Lancaster as " General" 
of the fleet. The vessels were loaded with iron, tin, lead, 
and cloth as well as with presents for native princes. Mer- 
chants were appointed to each of the vessels. In 1602 Su- 
matra was reached, where the King of Achin, living on the 
northern part of the island, was presented with gifts and with 
a letter from Queen Elizabeth, expatiating on the advantages 
of mutual trade. Lancaster, after capturing a richly laden 
Portuguese vessel off Malacca, proceeded to Bantam, the 
most important town on the island of Java before the founda- 
tion of Batavia by the Dutch. Here a factory was estab- 
lished and pepper was obtained. This first venture of the 
Company proved a financial success; the fleet brought back 
over a million pounds of pepper. The " General" of so suc- 
cessful an expedition became Sir James Lancaster. Soon a 
second fleet was sent to the Spice Islands, and a third pro- 
ceeded to India. By 1610 seventeen vessels had been sent to 
the East. For the voyage of 1610 the East India Company 
built two new ships, a pinnace and a large vessel of eleven 
hundred tons burden, the largest English merchant vessel of 
the time. Such significance was attached to the launching 
of these vessels that the King attended the ceremony and 
named the two ships; the smaller he called the Peppercorn 
and the larger the Trades Increase. Although the first dec- 
ade of British activity was comparatively modest when 
placed beside the work of the Dutch, it marks the beginning 
of a commercial activity that was to reach amazing propor- 
tions. 

As the Portuguese and the Dutch were fiercely contesting 
for the East Indies, the English turned to India. The East 
India Company had no intention at this time of mixing in 
their struggle for territory, but desired to confine its activi- 
ties to "quiet trade." Early in the century, Surat, on the west 
coast of India north of Bombay and at the mouth of the Tap- 
tee River, was chosen as a site for an English factory. In 



64 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

1607 Captain William Hawkins commanded an East India 
Company's ship bound for Surat with orders to find a suit- 
able harbor for an English depot. From there he went in- 
land to Agra where the Mogul had his court, and remained 
there for three years combating Dutch intrigues. He was 
successful in obtaining formal permission for an English fac- 
tory at Surat. Hawkins' work was continued by Sir Thomas 
Roe, who was sent to the court of the Mogul at the expense of 
the Company in 1614. He was a man of marked diplomatic 
ability, who by his skill laid the foundations for British power 
in India. The Portuguese, however, were not in the mood to 
allow English infringements on their rights, and while Roe 
was at the court of the Mogul, they made a determined effort 
to drive the English away from Surat. A large fleet attacked 
five British ships off Swally in 1615, but were disastrously de- 
feated. In the same year the Dutch were victors in a naval 
combat with the Portuguese. In consequence, from this 
time forward the Portuguese caused the English little trouble. 

The issue with the Dutch was not so easily settled. 
Trouble occurred because of English efforts to trade in the 
Spice Islands; the Dutch felt that the English had no busi- 
ness in a field which had been won by the loss of their own 
blood and treasure. The Banda Islands, south of the Spice 
Islands, where the Dutch had established a fort to prevent 
English encroachments, became the scene of the conflict. 
The Bandanese found the Hollanders as hard to deal with as 
the Portuguese, and welcomed the English. The latter in 
1615 made an unsuccessful attempt to place a factory on 
Great Banda Island, and in the next year the English were 
kept out by a superior Dutch fleet. In 1619 the English 
aided the natives of Java in fighting the Dutch, and out of 
this conflict came an agreement by which the English were 
to have one third of the trade of the Spice Islands and the 
Banda group. 

But such an arrangement could only be temporary. The 
smothered Dutch discontent came to a head in 1623 with the 
"massacre" of Amboina. They professed to believe that 
the English on Amboina, eighteen in number, were conspiring 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 65 

to capture the fort on that island garrisoned by two hundred 
men. Torture was applied until a confession of guilt was 
won from the unfortunate Englishmen, twelve of whom were 
executed. This barbarous proceeding did much to arouse 
popular English feeling against the Dutch, a feeling which 
the East India Company fostered by widely distributing a 
picture depicting the scene of torture. Later, the Dutch had to 
make amends for this act, but at the time James I was in no 
position to enter on a war with Holland. The outcome of the 
incident was the expulsion of the English from the East Indies. 

More interest attaches to the commencement of English 
activity in India. The establishment of a factory at Surat 
has already been noted. This remained long the headquar- 
ters of the English on the west coast, although subordinate 
factories were located elsewhere in the Mogul's dominions. 
An important step was taken in 1661, when the island of 
Bombay was ceded by Portugal to England as part of the 
dowry of Catherine of Braganza, Charles' queen. In 1668 
it was turned over to the East India Company for an annual 
payment of £10. Although but a miserable fishing village, it 
was so free from the attacks of warlike tribes, that finally in 
1687 the presidency of the west coast was transferred from 
Surat to Bombay. From this time on it was England's chief 
port in western India. On the Coromandel coast, Masulipa- 
tam had been the seat of an agency as early as 1611. In 
1640 the English bought from a native ruler a favorable site 
farther south called Madraspatam where Fort St. George 
was erected. It was the beginning of the great city of 
Madras, and was the first acquisition of territory on the 
mainland of India by the British. Thus before the middle 
of the seventeenth century the foundations of British India 
had been laid. 

Farther north in Bengal the English were slower in estab- 
lishing themselves. In 1634 the Mogul gave the English the 
privilege of trading in that region, and in 1640 a factory was 
placed at Hugh, just above the site of the modern Calcutta. 
Two years later another factory was located at Balasor, some 
hundred miles down the coast in Orissa. The possession of 



66 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

territory in Bengal came much later than elsewhere in India. 
It was not until about the end of the century that Fort Wil- 
liam was built by the East India Company on the site of 
Calcutta, where the purchase of three villages at this point 
on the river marked the beginning of territorial expansion in 
this part of India. Before this happened, the factories in 
Bengal had been separated from the Madras Presidency 
in order to form a separate unit. 

It is evident that the English were to have a permanent 
interest in India. But it is an interest altogether different 
from that in the mainland of North America. There was no 
influx of colonists; the interest was wholly commercial, and, 
in consequence, territorial control came very slowly. The 
political situation in India, in addition, was complex; strong 
warlike peoples were more of an obstacle than the helpless 
Indians of the Caribbean or the comparatively few aborigines 
of the American coast. We shall leave a study of the Indian 
situation until we come to describe the struggle of England 
and France for India in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. 1 

ANGLO-DUTCH RIVALRY IN THE WEST 

The Dutch, as well as their British rivals, found the new 
world of the West a fruitful field for commercial expansion. 
In the carrying of slaves from the western coast of Africa to 
the Caribbean, the Dutch had taken an active part, a trade 
in which they were outranked by the English only toward the 
close of the century. The Dutch were also keenly interested 
in the Portuguese colony of Brazil, where they captured but 
later restored Bahia and Pernambuco. The attacks on the 
Portuguese dominions in South America were prosecuted by 
the Dutch West India Company, which had interests also 
in the Caribbean. Guiana and the Orinoco were seats of 
Dutch factories; the island of Curagao and its neighbors still 
remain in the possession of the Netherlands. In the West 
Indies the outcome was the reverse of that in the East Indies, 
for English efforts were more successful than Dutch. 

1 See pp. 92 ff. 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 67 

On the mainland of North America, the Dutch took pos- 
session of the valley of the Hudson River. In 1614, at the 
mouth of the Hudson they built Fort Manhattan on Manhat- 
tan Island, and around it grew the city of New Amsterdam. 
The shores of the Hudson River were settled and Fort 
Orange (later Albany) was founded in 1622. As this Dutch 
colony lay between the English settlements of Virginia and 
New England, it was in a position to cause much difficulty to 
its English neighbors, especially under the energetic leader- 
ship of such a Governor as Peter Stuyvesant. The Dutch 
wanted to expand north along the coast toward the Connec- 
ticut River, a tendency that the English attempted to antic- 
ipate by the Confederation of the New England colonies. 1 

At last a war grew out of the various rivalries of these two 
great commercial powers. There were various causes. For 
one thing, the English had not forgotten the massacre at 
Amboina. The Commonwealth was opposed to the thriving 
trade that the Dutch carried on with the Royalist colonies 
in the West Indies. Royalists had also gone to the Nether- 
lands for refuge. In 1651 the English passed a Navigation 
Act which forbade foreign ships to carry colonial products 
from Asia, Africa, or America or goods of other countries to 
England save from the countries to which the ships be- 
longed. As the Dutch were the great carriers, it was obvi- 
ously aimed at them. Although the Act was not rigidly en- 
forced, the English exercised the right of search to the great 
inconvenience of their maritime competitors. 

War began in 1652. Blake and Tromp, who were the op- 
posing admirals, alternately held command of the Channel. 
Blake was defeated in the first year off Dungeness by Tromp 
in spite of the fact that the Dutch commander was inconven- 
ienced by the large number of merchant vessels he had to 
convoy to port. In 1653 Blake, with one hundred ships, won 
an indecisive victory off Portland while the Dutch admiral 
was convoying a fleet of two hundred merchantmen. Tromp 
was again defeated off Harwich and the merchant shipping 
of the Dutch tied up in port. As the Portuguese had retaken 

1 See p. 45, 



68 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Brazil in the meantime and as there was dissension at home, 
the Netherlander made peace in 1654. They agreed to pay 
an indemnity for the Amboina massacre and granted Pula- 
roon in the Spice Islands to the English. 

The rivalry continued, however. When Charles II be- 
came King in 1660, the reestablished monarchy was not 
particularly friendly to the Dutch Republic. In 1661 Louis 
XIV, who was very much opposed to republics, assumed the 
government of France and began his long conflict with Hol- 
land. Charles II, moreover, made an alliance with Portugal, 
the enemy of Holland. He also endeavored to foster English 
commerce. Pularoon had not been relinquished as agreed, 
and the Dutch seemed to be gaining on the English in the 
carrying trade. 

Renewed warlike measures began in a manner not at all 
creditable to the English; they made irregular attacks on 
Dutch commerce. In 1664 a piratical fleet was sent, with 
the knowledge of the English Government, to the Guinea 
coast, where it caused havoc to Dutch trade. New Amster- 
dam, at the mouth of the Hudson, was taken before a formal 
declaration of war. It had been granted by Charles to his 
brother, the Duke of York, more than a year before it was 
captured, during a supposed time of peace between the two 
countries. This was too much for the Dutch to bear, and 
open war was waged during the years 1665-67. In the first 
year the Duke of York gained a decisive naval victory. 
Both fleets suffered defeat in 1666, though De Ruyter, the 
Dutch commander, brought the Dutch East India Com- 
pany's fleet safely into port. In 1667 De Ruyter sailed up 
the Thames and inflicted serious loss to English shipping. In 
that year peace came at the wish of both combatants, as Hol- 
land feared Louis XIV, and as England was exhausted not 
only by the war, but also by the ravages of the plague in 1665 
and the Great Fire that destroyed two thirds of London in 
September, 1666. The Treaty of Breda left Pularoon with 
the Dutch, the Navigation Act was relaxed, and the English 
retained New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York in 
honor of the King's brother. 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 69 

ENGLISH NORTH AMERICA 

In the meantime the English were filling in the unoccupied 
territory along the North American coast. By the end of 
the century, there was an almost continuous fringe of Eng- 
lish colonies occupying the shore of the Atlantic and the im- 
portant rivers. Maryland had been granted to George Cal- 
vert, Baron Baltimore. He had made an unsuccessful at- 
tempt at establishing a settlement in Newfoundland. George 
Calvert died before he could carry out his new plan of colo- 
nizing the more attractive Maryland. His purpose was ac- 
complished, nevertheless, by his able son, Cecilius Calvert. 
This territory, known as Maryland, was colonized for the 
first time in 1634. As the Cal verts were Roman Catholics, no 
mention was made of a religious establishment. In 1649 the 
Maryland Assembly passed a Toleration Act, placing Mary- 
land beside Rhode Island in allowing freedom of worship. 
The region between the Hudson and the Delaware was 
granted Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret in 1664. It 
was soon setteld, but there was considerable trouble in the 
colony in spite of the fact that religious freedom and a lib- 
eral government were given to it by the proprietors. The 
Quakers became interested in this colony of Jersey, and 
Berkeley sold his rights to a board of trustees of whom the 
most prominent was the Quaker, William Penn. A little later, 
Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania with the Quakers 
especially in mind. Religious toleration and large privileges 
of self-government were given Penn's colony. 

The Carolinas, south of Virginia, were settled shortly 
after Charles II became King in 1660. This plantation also 
allowed freedom of conscience to those coming to the colony. 
In 1680 Charleston was founded, a city destined to be the 
commercial center for the country south of the Chesapeake 
during the colonial period. Early in the next century, the 
colony was divided into its two natural divisions of North 
and South Carolina. Georgia, still farther south, was not es- 
tablished until 1732. With the single exception of Georgia, 
however, a beginning had been made before the close of the 



70 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

century in all the English colonies of North America which 
were later to form the original thirteen revolting states. 

If we take the Revolution of 1688 as a point from which to 
survey the work done by the English beyond the seas, we 
shall find that much had been accomplished in the eight dec- 
ades following the founding of Jamestown. Trading posts 
had been set up in India, and English ships were active 
throughout the East. In West Africa — at Gambia, and on 
the Gold Coast — stations had been established in connec- 
tion with the slave-trade. As a stopping-place for the ships 
of the East India Company, the island of St. Helena in the 
South Atlantic had been taken from the Dutch. Although this 
little island changed hands several times, it eventually re- 
mained with the English, who found it important as a supply- 
station and halfway point. In the West Indies large acquisi- 
tions had been made and prosperous colonies were enriching 
the mother country by the end of the century. 

The most important of English oversea possessions were 
the continental and island colonies of North America. The 
Hudson's Bay Company was already at work, and New- 
foundland was an important center for fishing. The colonies 
to the south already contained a respectable population. By 
the end of the century, New York City had five thousand 
people, while Boston claimed seven thousand inhabitants 
and Philadelphia twelve thousand. The total population of 
the colonies that later formed the nucleus of the United States 
was probably not far from two hundred thousand in 1700. 
Three fourths of this number were about equally distributed 
between New England and the colonies along the Chesa- 
peake. 

Why this remarkable expansion? Hints have been received 
that help to an understanding of the reasons for colonization. 
Political motives undoubtedly had a large place in English 
minds in the work of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. The West Indies were convenient for attacking Spain 
and were so used. The antagonism was partly religious, 
growing out of Elizabeth's struggle with Philip II and the in- 
tense hatred of " Romish" practices held by the English Pu- 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 71 

ritans. Care must be taken, however, not to overemphasize 
the religious motive. There was not during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries nearly so much continuity in Eng- 
land's opposition to Spain as some writers would have us 
believe. 

The religious motive, irrespective of hatred to Catholic 
Spain, played a large part in the inception of many of the col- 
onies. Plymouth was founded in order to have freedom 
of worship, the Puritan settlements in New England were 
strongly theocratic, and Roger Williams founded Rhode Is- 
land as an asylum against their narrowness. Maryland was a 
home for Roman Catholics, and Carolina was careful to give 
a large measure of toleration. Pennsylvania became the chief 
asylum of the persecuted Quakers. 

The new settlements were also valuable as places to which 
"undesirables" could be banished. English criminals and 
prisoners of war, waifs and strays from city streets, Irish re- 
calcitrants and Scotch vagabonds, served to furnish laborers 
who were often no better than slaves. By no means was emi- 
gration always voluntary, and yet it must not be inferred 
that substantial and respectable men and women did not go 
overseas in large numbers attracted by religious freedom or 
economic opportunity. 

A very important reason for English oversea interest was 
the economic value of lands and products beyond the seas. 
There was no colonizing purpose in the English interest in the 
East; trade was the motive and territorial possession was in- 
cidental to business. On the West African coast the slave- 
trade served as the chief reason for attracting English ships. 
The fish of Newfoundland, the furs of Hudson Bay, the sugar 
of Barbados, gave to these possessions their value. The 
story of Virginia is the record of the rise of the tobacco in- 
dustry. 

The growth of colonies also gave a market for English man- 
ufactured goods. Already by the middle of the century the 
colonial trade had become sufficiently large to cause English- 
men to try to keep it to themselves, to the inconvenience not 
only of the Dutch, but of the colonists as well. 



72 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The development of a more systematic colonial policy 
during the Restoration marks off the latter half of the cen- 
tury rather distinctly from the preceding fifty years. Prag- 
matic, economic aims became more prominent. This grow- 
ing interest in colonies and commerce accounts largely for the 
rivalry with Holland and for the rise of difficulties with 
France. It was as the result of the impulses growing from 
decidedly practical ends that the old colonial system began to 
take shape after 1660. * 

England's rivals in the colonial field were unable to show 
anything like the activity and fruitful labor that was to the 
credit of the British at the close of the seventeenth century. 
Spain was already decadent. Portugal had seen the days of 
its greatness as a world-power, and henceforth the friend- 
ship of England was to be the guarantee of the continuation 
of the remnant of its former glory. The Dutch had been the 
severest contestants of the English for supremacy. During 
the first half of the century the rivalry was between equals, 
but by 1700 Holland had lost the leadership in commerce to 
England. The causes for Dutch weakness included smaller 
resources and the great drain upon them caused by the 
wars with England and the almost continuous conflict waged 
with France during the latter half of the century. Holland 
was not a nation in the sense that England and France were, 
but more a group of city-states; internal disagreement was 
thus better able to weaken its effectiveness. Above all, there 
was lacking the imperial sentiment and the eagerness for ex- 
pansion which gave constant acceleration to English growth 
beyond the seas. 

The country that took Holland's place during the latter 
part of the century as the rival of England was France. Un- 
der Louis XIV France became the undoubted leader of Eu- 
rope, even threatening for a time to dominate the Continent. 
The French entered on colonial expansion with resources back 
of their efforts that were much greater than those of Spain, 
Portugal, Holland, or even of England. By 1700 England 
and France had become bitter enemies and were to remain 

1 See chapter vii for the rise of the old colonial system. 



RIVALRY OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND 73 

so for over one hundred years. Therefore, the rise of the 
French colonial empire and its conflict with the course of 
English expansion will be the next subject of study. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The volumes by Cunningham will still be found useful. For the works 
on India see the Bibliographical Note to the following chapter. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 

The "entente cordiale" of France and Great Britain in the 
early years of the twentieth century has been commonly re- 
garded as the healing of an ancient breach between these two 
nations of western Europe. It is true that during the Mid- 
dle Ages there had been conflict, notably the Hundred Years' 
War, in the course of which England was practically driven 
from the Continent. It is by no means true, however, that 
there was a continuous state of war, recognized or unrecog- 
nized, between the two countries before the days of Louis 
XIV. During the century that saw Henry VIII and Eliz- 
abeth the principal English rulers, foreign policy showed 
no consistent opposition to France. Henry alternately be- 
stowed his favor on France and Spain. Philip II and Eliz- 
abeth were bitter enemies, and this led to Anglo-French 
friendliness. James I made a marriage treaty with the French 
King in 1624 with the result that the wife of Charles I was 
a French princess. During the Commonwealth the Dutch 
were the rivals of the English abroad, while Cromwell and 
Mazarin worked in concert. This situation continued dur- 
ing the reign of Charles II. It was in the famous Treaty of 
Dover in 1670 that Louis XIV and Charles II agreed to unite 
against their common enemy. 

With the Revolution of 1688 all was changed. A period 
of almost unceasing warfare began between England and 
France, which is sometimes conveniently called the " Second 
Hundred Years' War." When William of Holland became 
King of England, the latter country joined in the Dutch op- 
position to France. From 1689 to 1697 there was the "War 
of the League of Augsburg" or "King William's War." It 
was soon followed by the conflict over the Spanish Succession 
from 1702 to 1713. The War of the Austrian Succession was 
in progress from 1739 to 1748 and the Seven Years' War 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 75 

from 1756 to 1763. The American Revolution, during the 
course of which France, Spain, and Holland became Brit- 
ain's enemies, began in 1775 and closed in 1783. Ten years 
later the long twenty-three years' war against the French Rev- 
olution and Napoleon embroiled the two countries. In all 
these great struggles France and England were on opposite 
sides. The eighteenth century was for England predomi- 
nantly a time of war — especially against France. Over 
half of the one hundred and twenty-six years from the ac- 
cession of William III in 1689 to the overthrow of Napoleon 
in 1815 was occupied by armed conflict between these two 
countries. 

The ascendency of France under Louis XIV accounts partly 
for this ill feeling. WTien Louis became the actual ruler 
of his country in 1661, he found a nation well prepared to 
assist him in his ambitious designs. The ministries of Sully, 
Richelieu, and Mazarin had brought wealth to the monarch, 
efficiency into the army, and success into diplomacy. The 
" Grand Monarque *'■ had extravagant ideas of divine right and 
very optimistic conceptions of the French "natural" bound- 
aries. In consequence, he was engaged almost constantly in 
war with his neighbors until his death in 1715. For a time it 
appeared as though he might become the dictator of Euro- 
pean affairs. As in the days of Napoleon and again in 1914, 
when a similar danger arose, great alliances were formed 
against the nation endeavoring to disturb the established 
equilibrium. 

A contributory cause to the rivalry of these two countries 
is found in the colonial rivalry of France and England. It 
would be truer to fact to say that this is the explanation of 
this continued state of war; no inherent repugnance nor in- 
herited antipathy can so easily account for it. At first the 
colonial aspect did not seem to be very important, but as the 
wars succeeded one another in rapid succession, this issue be- 
came more and more prominent. Britain's commercial dom- 
inance and colonial empire grew at the expense of France, as it 
had grown at the expense of Holland and Spain in the pre- 
vious centuries. The seven wars of this period are really 



76 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

varying phases of one great conflict, a duel from which Brit- 
ain was to emerge the unquestionable victor and the master 
of possessions unrivaled in extent and importance. Since 
that time the wars of Europe have been increasingly con- 
cerned with commercial and colonial matters. The World 
War of 1914 is but the most recent illustration. 

FRANCE IN AMERICA AND INDIA 

Before this duel is examined in detail as contributing to the 
growth of the British Empire, we must find how a French 
colonial empire was added as a fifth to those of Spain, Por- 
tugal, Holland, and England. The voyage of Verrazano, a 
Florentine sailing under the French flag, was undertaken in 
1524, but resulted in no permanent settlement. In 1636 
Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence, finally reaching 
the Lachine Rapids in a rowboat. Near these rapids — the 
name again reminds us of the search for an opening to China 
— was Hochelaga, an Indian village of importance, and 
the site of an Indian settlement to-day. Cartier ascended 
Mount Royal, now located in the center of the city of Mon- 
treal, and then returned to Quebec, where he spent the win- 
ter. Though furs and fish continued to attract Frenchmen 
to this part of the world, no permanent occupation occurred 
until Champlain built a fort at Quebec in 1608. 

This courageous fur-trader and colonizer, unhappily for 
France, joined with the Indians of the St. Lawrence region 
against their enemies to the south, known as the Iroquois. 
In a war-expedition Champlain saw for the first time the lake 
that is known by his name and frightened into bitter hatred 
the Iroquois war-party, astonished by his appearance and 
firearms. To this unfortunate interference in Indian quar- 
rels is to be traced much of the later ill fortune of the French. 
It caused great inconvenience to the fur-traders, hindered 
the earnest work of Jesuit missionaries intent on the conver- 
sion of the aborigines, and lent to later French and English 
border warfare a character of much cruelty. Until his death 
in 1635 Champlain was the moving spirit in French progress 
on the North American continent. By his dauntless cour- 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 77 

age, great interest in exploration, and unwearied patience he 
stamped his influence strongly on the colony of New France. 1 

When the personal rule of Louis XIV began, there were 
but a few thousand white settlers in New France and Acadia. 
This vigorous monarch gave new force to French colonial en- 
terprise. Explorers made known the river courses of the cen- 
tral part of the continent. It is probable that Jean Nicolet 
had camped on the banks of the Wisconsin about 1640, and 
Radisson and Grosseilliers near the headwaters of the Mis- 
sissippi twenty years later. Ten years thereafter La Salle 
reached the Ohio and the Illinois. In the year 1671, in the 
presence of fourteen Indian tribes, the French took formal 
possession of the region of the Great Lakes at the Sault Ste. 
Marie. In 1673 Joliet and Marquette voyaged down the 
Mississippi as far as Arkansas, and La Salle reached the 
mouth of the great "Father of Waters" in 1682. He named 
the country Louisiana in honor of the French King for whom 
he took possession of the country. 

The energy of Louis XIV's rule was insufficient, however, 
to "possess" this vast territory extending from Acadia to the 
Rio Grande, in the solid fashion of the English occupation 
along the Atlantic seaboard. France had great resources, 
but divided interests. As a continental nation it was keenly 
concerned in European affairs, and the fruitless efforts to ob- 
tain extensive territories on the Continent cost the French 
much treasure and life, while England was able to give 
stricter attention to its oversea interests. The French gov- 
ernmental system was especially rigid, and enterprise was 
greatly dependent on royal authority. French colonizing 
companies had difficulty in finding people willing to go to 

1 The interest of Champlain in a route across the continent to the riches of 
the East was as keen as that of the colonists who established their post at 
Jamestown two years before Champlain founded the city of Quebec. In 1615 
he discovered Lake Huron, where he heard of rumors of a great river by which 
he hoped to reach Cathay. A year before Champlain's death he sent an ex- 
plorer, Jean Nicolet by name, still farther westward with the result that Lake 
Michigan became known. So confident was Nicolet of being able to make his 
way to China that he provided himself with a "grand robe of China damask all 
strewn with flowers and birds of many colors," similar to those worn by the 
mandarins. 



78 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

new lands in large numbers. Moreover, English colonies had 
been indebted to religious dissatisfaction, but New France 
was closed to any but Catholics. Louis XIV's great minister 
of finance, Colbert, made great efforts to stimulate industry, 
commerce, and colonization, but his artificial schemes suf- 
fered from over-regulation, as a glance at the fortunes of the 
French East India Company will serve to show. 

France was interested elsewhere than on the continent of 
North America. Mention has already been made of its co- 
operation with the Dutch and English in the West Indies. 1 
Martinique and Guadeloupe, two of the most important 
West Indian islands, became French in 1635; they form a 
part of the French colonial empire to-day. The islands of 
Madagascar, lie de France, and lie de Bourbon became 
French possessions about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury and served as convenient stopping-places on the jour- 
ney to India, for the French came to India as other builders 
of empire had before them. 

Not until 1664, sixty years after the initial undertakings of 
the English and Dutch East India Companies, was the first 
French Company formed. It had a capital of fifteen million 
livres, provided very largely by those near the King. It was 
a great contrast to the English Company which began away 
from the court. In France, the King urged an unwilling peo- 
ple to become interested in oversea trade; one hundred and 
nineteen lettres de cachet were sent out by Louis to arouse in- 
terest in the new Company. Comparatively few merchants, 
notwithstanding, took an active part in its development. In 
addition, it was greatly restricted by being bound to the re- 
ligious and political conditions in France, becoming almost a 
department of state, with conscious colonizing intentions. It 
is not surprising that in the first eleven years of the Com- 
pany's life over six and a half million of livres were lost. In 
spite of these untoward beginnings, settlements were made in 
India, which were later to become bases for conflict with the 
English. Factories were established at Surat and Masuli- 
patam in 1668 and 1669. In 1674 Pondich6ry, a few miles 

* See pp. 52, 53, 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 79 

south of Madras, was founded. Two years later, a factory 
was placed at Chandernagore in Bengal, a little north of the 
site of Calcutta. 

THE DUEL IN AMERICA 

Thus the French had made a start in India before 1689, 
and in North America had encircled the English settlements 
by vague claims based on the work of daring explorers. The 
story of the conflict of these two nations with their adjacent 
colonies is a complicated one. The wars were not fought in 
one arena, but in Europe, on the sea, in North America, and 
in the Far East. The wars in Europe are of secondary inter- 
est for the present study, although Pitt could say with a 
large measure of truth that "America was conquered in Ger- 
many." The large population of the English colonies along 
the western shore of the Atlantic and the French occupation 
of the St. Lawrence meant war in North America with the 
very inception of national trouble. In India the duel did 
not grow serious until about 1745, when Dupleix gave strong 
expression to French plans. It will, therefore, be convenient 
to deal, in the first place, with the American theater of action. 
India will next claim attention. Then definite conclusions 
can be drawn as to the effect of this long period of Anglo- 
French contention. 

The war waged against France from 1689 to 1697 is known 
in European history as the "War of the League of Augs- 
burg." In American colonial annals it has the name of 
"King William's War." The country that was in dispute 
lay between the English frontier settlements on the north- 
west and the Great Lakes. It so happened that the region 
extending from western New England to Lake Erie, and even 
to Lake Michigan and south to the Ohio, was under the con- 
trol of the Iroquois League, the most powerful Indian organi- 
zation on the continent. It consisted of five nations — the 
Mohawks to the east and the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, 
and Senecas in that order to the west. Reputed to be able 
warriors, they were bitter enemies of the Algonquins in the 
St. Lawrence valley and of the Hurons farther west. Cham- 



80 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

plain's alliance with the Algonquins made the Iroquois the 
enemies of France. 

Before 1689 the French had made several attacks on the 
Iroquois with but slight success. In 1684 the English had 
held an important conference with the Five Nations at Al- 
bany. There the Indians acknowledged English sovereignty 
and permitted the arms of the Duke of York to be placed on 
the walls of Iroquois villages. Governor Dongan thereupon 
informed the French Governor of Canada that the land un- 
der his care included all the territory south and southwest of 
the "Lake of Canada." When the Treaty of Neutrality was 
signed by France and England in 1686 at London, Dongan 
interpreted it as prohibiting any relation between the French 
and "our Indians on this side of the Great Lake." 

When King William's War opened, the French were in a 
good position to work out their plans. Count Frontenac, 
who was sent to Canada in 1690, led vigorous attacks on Eng- 
lish outposts. Schenectady near Albany, Salmon Falls in 
New Hampshire, and Portland in Maine were successfully 
attacked with great cruelty. As a result an English inter- 
colonial congress was called with delegates from Massachu- 
setts, New Plymouth, Connecticut, and New York. An ex- 
pedition was planned against Montreal, in which the soldiers 
of the four colonies were to be assisted by the Iroquois. In 
addition a naval expedition was to leave Massachusetts for 
Quebec. The land expedition was abandoned at Lake 
Champlain, and Sir William Phips, in charge of the attack 
on Quebec, was unable to capture this key-position of New 
France. During the latter part of the war, Indian attacks 
continued, but peace in 1697 left the combatants in about the 
same position they were at the beginning of the struggle. 

The War of the Spanish Succession came after four years 
of peace. "Queen Anne's War," as its American counter- 
part was called, was similar in character to the previous con- 
flict, except that more assistance came to the colonies from 
Britain. Deerfield, Connecticut, was surprised in 1704 by a 
party of Indians and Canadians. The oft-told story of the 
massacre and of the hardships of the captives well illustrates 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 81 

the severe character of frontier life during the days of the 
colonial wars. 1 

British overland expeditions suffered from the lukewarm- 
ness and instability of the Iroquois, who kept on peaceful 
terms with the French in the early years of the war. In 
1710 Port Royal in Acadia was taken by a British fleet with 
the assistance of colonial troops; it was renamed Annapolis 
Royal and continued from that time to be in British hands. 
In the next year a great fleet of eleven war vessels and sixty 
transports carrying twelve thousand men was sent to attack 
Canada. It was amply sufficient to have settled the ques- 
tion of the possession of the St. Lawrence in favor of the 
British. The fleet under Sir Hovenden Walker and the army 
under John Hill — brother of Queen Anne's favorite, Mrs. 
Masham — were so inefficiently led that ten ships and nine 
hundred men were lost in the St. Lawrence in a vain attempt 
to reach Quebec. 

Elsewhere the war on the sea had been in favor of Great 
Britain. France had been badly defeated in the naval battle 
of La Hogue in 1692, and Louis was so busy on the Continent 
and his resources so heavily taxed that he had no opportunity 
to strengthen his weakened maritime forces. This partly 
accounts for a conspicuous English success, the capture of 
Gibraltar in 1704. Sir George Rooke, in command of the 
British fleet in the Mediterranean, had failed to capture Bar- 
celona or Toulon. Meeting another English fleet under Sir 
Cloudesley Shovel, he determined to attack Gibraltar be- 
cause of its insufficient garrison and strategic importance. It 
was easily taken and has given Great Britain the key to the 
western opening of the Mediterranean ever since. The 
Spanish and French immediately set about the recapture of 
the place, but the combined fleets of the two countries were 
unable to win a decisive victory over Rooke off Malaga. 

v The ostensible purpose of the expedition was to obtain the church bell of 
Deerfield. It had been bought in France for the Indian village of Caughna- 
waga near Montreal. The vessel carrying it to America was captured by a New 
England privateer and the bell sold to the Deerfield congregation. The at- 
tacking party obtained the bell, but did much more. Half a hundred of the 
villagers were killed and twice as many taken into captivity. 



82 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

A little later the French made an unsuccessful attack on 
Gibraltar. 

THE PEACE OF UTEECHT 

In 1713 the War of the Spanish Succession was ended by a 
series of treaties among the various belligerents; several com- 
mercial agreements were included. The Peace of Utrecht is 
exceedingly important in the study of British expansion, for 
notable progress was registered in the accession of colonial 
territory, in the increasing security of its maritime control, 
and in the development of British commerce. Although 
France retained Cape Breton Island and Louisburg, Aca- 
dia, later to be known as Nova Scotia, was abandoned to 
Great Britain. The French also acknowledged British sov- 
ereignty over the Iroquois, and the Hudson Bay territories 
were recognized as British. France gave up all claim to 
Newfoundland, but retained fishing rights as well as the 
privilege of curing fish on the shores of the island. St. 
Christopher in the West Indies had been jointly occupied by 
France and Great Britain up to this time; henceforth it was 
to be solely British. 

The Spanish made several important concessions to Great 
Britain. Both Gibraltar and the island of Minorca were left 
in British hands. The impregnable rock at the western en- 
trance to the Mediterranean was to prove one of the most 
valuable stations in the enlarging dominions. Minorca, with 
its splendid, fortified harbor of Port Mahon, served as a naval 
station in the Mediterranean. In the wars against Napoleon 
it was to be replaced by the more strategically located island 
of Malta. Spain also granted Great Britain commercial con- 
cessions. The British were given the sole right of importing 
negroes for thirty years from Africa for the supply of the 
Spanish colonies in America. By the Asiento Great Britain 
agreed to furnish each year four thousand and eight hun- 
dred negroes. In addition, the British could send annually 
to the shores of South America one trading vessel of not more 
than five hundred tons. This may not appear of great com- 
mercial value, yet it was the only trading privilege granted to 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 83 

any European nation outside the motherland of Spain. As 
we shall find, this slight opening served as an ever-broaden- 
ing avenue for British commerce. 1 

There were other terms in the treaties which, if not so well 
known, served in a very direct way to further British mari- 
time and commercial progress. Holland emerged from the 
struggle a victor, but the Dutch made no colonial advance 
and were so weak on the sea that henceforth they ceased 
to be important rivals of the British. France gave up all 
pretensions to maritime power in the English Channel by 
razing the fortifications and filling up the harbor of Dun- 
kirk. This port had been a base for privateering warfare 
against England. Britain guarded against the increase of 
French colonial power in the New World by a provision of 
the Anglo-Spanish treaty; Spain promised never to transfer 
land in America to France or any other nation. The treaty 
between France and Portugal was important for Great Brit- 
ain, since Portugal, even as early as this, was in close rela- 
tion with Britain. France acknowledged the sole sovereignty 
of the Portuguese over the settlements in the Amazon, and 
gave up all right, on the part of the French colony of Cay- 
enne (French Guiana), to trade in the Amazon region. As 
Brazilian trade was almost solely British, this provision was 
directly in favor of Great Britain. 

The position of England in 1713 was indeed commanding. 
Louis XIV was to die two years later, leaving an exhausted 
treasury and a weakened country. The navy of France was 
in no position to contend for or protect colonial possessions. 
Great Britain was already the winner of the race in the 
struggle for empire, for France was certain to succumb to 
the undivided interests of its maritime opponent. Admiral 
Mahan well summarizes the position of England at this time: 
"The sea-power of England was not merely in the great 
navy. . . . Neither was it in a prosperous commerce. ... It 
was in the union of the two carefully fostered that England 
made the gain of sea-power over and beyond all other states; 
and this gain is distinctly associated with and dates from the 

1 See below, p. 84. 



84 THE BRITISH EMPIRE. , 

» 

War of the Spanish Succession. Before that war England 
was one of the sea-powers; after that, she was the sea-power, 
without any second. This power, also, she held unshared by- 
friend and unchecked by foe." 1 

After Utrecht, England remained at peace for about 
twenty-five years. It was a period of uninterrupted com- 
mercial expansion with Walpole as the pilot of the state for 
much of the time. His aversion to war, even to a successful 
war, was caused by his interest in English industrial and com- 
mercial progress. But war finally came in 1739. It began 
with Spain and Britain as the opponents, although it was not 
long before England's enemies included France. Friction had 
arisen with Spain over trade. When Spain let down the bars 
to one English ship, illegal commerce was indulged in by the 
English; they stationed the one ship off the coast of South 
America, where she was continually loaded and unloaded 
from other English vessels. The Spaniard, in order to pre- 
vent smuggling and this violation of a treaty entered into be- 
tween the two countries, rigidly enforced the right of search. 
Cruelty was exercised, one case of which became prominent. 
Robert Jenkins, a captain, asserted that his ear had been cut 
off when his ship had been attacked by a Spanish boarding 
party. On his return to England, he carried the severed 
member about in cotton and aroused war feeling by declaring 
that, as a result of the indignity, he had commended his soul 
to God and his cause to his country. The country became so 
enthusiastic over the cause that Walpole was forced to de- 
clare war. This war was soon linked with the War of the 
Austrian Succession, in which various continental powers, in- 
cluding Spain, France, and Prussia, sought portions of the 
territory of the young Austrian Queen, Maria Theresa. 

For France and Great Britain it was but one more stage in 
their colonial rivalry. In 1743, by the Second Family Com- 
pact, the two Bourbon countries became allied, France agree- 
ing to assist in the recapture of Gibraltar and Minorca, and 
Spain promising to transfer the Asiento to its ally. The 
British found the opposition severe during this war, and did 

1 A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea-Power upon History, 1660-1783, p. 225. 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 85 

not come out of the struggle with conspicuous success. The 
British, however, were the victors in America. After the loss 
of Acadia, the French had built at great expense and labor the 
stronghold of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, where it com- 
manded the entrance to the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. Gov- 
ernor Shirley of Massachusetts prepared an expedition of 
nearly four thousand men and one hundred ships under Colo- 
nel Pepperrell, which joined with a British squadron under 
Commodore Warren in an attack on Louisburg. The fort 
was captured in 1745. Twice in the next two years the 
French sent fleets to recapture it, but with no success. As a 
counterbalance to this loss the French captured Madras in 
India. In a naval battle off Toulon in 1744 the British were 
not conspicuously successful, but in 1747 two British victo- 
ries — that of Anson off Cape Finisterre and of Hawke off 
Belle Isle — completed the destruction of the French navy. 
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle brought but another inter- 
regnum in the long duel. Louisburg was restored to the 
French and Madras to the English. The Asiento was re- 
newed for four years. If the war brought few territorial 
changes, commerce suffered severely. Great Britain lost 
over three thousand vessels, while the French and Spanish 
combined lost five hundred more than the English. In con- 
sequence, the relatively small fleets of France and Spain suf- 
fered in much greater proportion than these figures would in- 
dicate. The French want of an adequate navy is more than 
ever in evidence, while it is clear that Britain was again 
saved by sea-power, even if it were not always used with 
signal ability. 

THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 

The culmination of the series of conflicts was the Seven 
Years' War, which began in 1756. It was a gigantic struggle. 
On the continent of Europe, Frederick the Great of Prussia, 
assisted by the subsidies of Britain, fought tirelessly against 
Russia, Austria, and France. On the sea, in America, in 
India, the issue was sharply drawn between England and 
France. 



86 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Fortunately for Great Britain, there was a man at the head 
of affairs who saw clearly the issue in its largest meaning and 
was not content with a stalemate. William Pitt is largely re- 
sponsible for the extraordinary measure of success that Brit- 
ain attained in this mid-century war. He was forty-eight 
years of age when the war began and had already made his 
mark in parliamentary life. His grandfather, Thomas Pitt, 
had been Governor of Madras, and he had raised the family 
to a place of wealth and political influence through the sale 
of a remarkably large diamond for the sum of £135,000. The 
tenure of Old Sarum, later so conspicuous as a "rotten bor- 
ough," was purchased; it was from this borough that Wil- 
liam Pitt went to Parliament. There he exercised great 
influence by his oratorical gifts, his integrity, and the sweep 
of his ideas. Grattan said of him: "In the conduct of af- 
fairs he saw the British Empire as a whole and refused to 
allow England to be lost in the intricacies of continental poli- 
tics." Pitt was alive to the need of keeping France busy at 
home, so that his liberal subsidies to Frederick the Great 
during the war served indirectly his main purpose. He 
showed also a wonderful power in choosing lieutenants who 
could do things, and in arousing them to something of his 
own tremendous energy. 

Great Britain was in need of a vigorous leader, as the 
French were feverishly active in India and North America. 
Louisburg had been made stronger than ever, and the French 
were busy trying to arouse the people of Acadia to revolt. So 
serious did this menace seem that the military authorities 
decided to deport the Acadians. Accordingly, in 1755, about 
six thousand of them were carried to the English colonies to 
the south. There was inevitable hardship and misfortune, 
which Longfellow has idealized in his Evangeline. As war 
was imminent and the Acadians, who were living within the 
range of military operations, refused to give oaths of alle- 
giance, the British authorities felt that deportation was nec- 
essary. It was at about this time that the British subdued 
the country to the west of Acadia, now known as New Bruns- 
wick. 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 87 

More serious still was the aggressive attitude of the French 
in the Ohio valley. Marquis Duquesne, Governor of Can- 
ada, had undertaken to establish a chain of forts in the dis- 
puted territory. In 1754 Fort Duquesne had been built at 
the point where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers 
unite to form the Ohio. In the next year General Braddock 
was sent from England with regular troops to capture Fort 
Duquesne. Virginian colonials, among whom was George 
Washington, assisted in the campaign. The expedition was 
totally defeated with the loss of its leader and seven hundred 
men, about ten miles from the fort, largely because Braddock 
refused to fight in frontier fashion. 

On the eastern side of the Atlantic, the war began inauspi- 
ciously for Britain. Early in 1756 Great Britain was led to 
fear invasion, which proved to be merely a blind to cover a 
successful attack on Minorca. The British squadron under 
Admiral Byng was unable to prevent the capture of the is- 
land. Nothing shows better the hold that empire-building 
and commercial interests had on the British mind than the 
storm of indignation with which the defeat was received. 

Up to this point Pitt had not been the leader of the country 
politically, as the King could not endure him. Finally in 
1757, to the disgust of the monarch, he was given the whole 
charge of foreign affairs. Soon Pitt's plans began to bear 
fruit. In America four campaigns were waged. In 1758 a 
strong British force under Admiral Boscawen and General 
Amherst was sent to capture Louisburg. The fortress was 
taken and two years later demolished, it was of no particular 
value to the English, as Halifax had been founded by the Brit- 
ish to take its place. A second expedition against the French 
forts on Lake Champlain and Lake George was repulsed. 
But a force sent against Fort Duquesne succeeded in cap- 
turing this important post; it was renamed Fort Pitt and was 
later to become the busy industrial center of Pittsburgh. A 
fourth expedition destroyed Fort Frontenac, commanding 
the outlet from Lake Ontario, where the city of Kingston 
now stands. 

In the next year elaborate preparations were set on foot for 



88 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the conquest of Canada. Niagara was taken, but Amherst, 
who was to approach Quebec by land, could not proceed far- 
ther than Lake Champlain. Therefore, the naval expedition 
under General Wolfe, who had assisted in the capture of 
Louisburg, was compelled to attack Quebec without the as- 
sistance of Amherst. Wolfe had nine thousand men and a 
strong fleet under Admiral Saunders. Montcalm, the French 
commander, had fifteen thousand men for the defense of 
Quebec. As the city was located on high bluffs overlooking 
the river, it was in a position difficult to attack. Wolfe, 
therefore, decided to approach the city from the rear. His 
soldiers scaled the cliffs some distance above the town and 
presented themselves to the astonished gaze of Montcalm on 
the morning of September 13, 1759, drawn up in battle array 
on the Plains of Abraham. The British were victorious ; in the 
next year their hold on Canada was assured by the capture 
of Montreal, the last French stronghold on the St. Lawrence. 
The fate of New France had been decided. 

In other quarters Pitt's leadership was equally fruitful. A 
naval force was sent against the French possessions on the 
west African coast. Here the districts about the Senegal 
River, the island of Goree and Lagos became British. The 
French West Indian islands of Marie Galante, Guadeloupe, 
Martinique, Grenada, Sta. Lucia, and St. Vincent were cap- 
tured. Spain, which had joined France against Great Britain, 
suffered the loss of Havana in the West Indies and of the 
Philippines in the Far East. The British fleet under Bos- 
cawen — he was popularly known as "Old Dreadnought" — 
dispersed the French fleet in the Mediterranean, and Hawke 
won a brilliant victory over the enemy's fleet from Brest in 
Quiberon Bay near the mouth of the Loire. Horace Wal- 
pole declared with truth: " Indeed, one is forced to ask every 
morning what victory there is for fear of missing one." 

ANCIENT INDIA 

In the meantime secure foundations were being laid for em- 
pire in India. There the conflict between the French and the 
British had not begun so early as in America. It was not un- 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 



89 



til the War of the Austrian Succession that the two countries 
found their interests clashing in the Far East. A clear under- 
standing of this part of the great duel is dependent on a 
knowledge of the internal conditions of this future home of 




MALDIVE ;r. 
ISLANDS • 



N D 



THE INDIAN PENINSULA 
IN 1763 

Heavy line bounds British acquisitions under Give kssbbsss 
British places shown Bombay Dutch Qochiji, ' 



French — Karikal. 



Portuguese Gq4 



BRITISH ISLES 
Comparative Size 



British power. Heretofore, we have not had occasion to go 
inland from the coast, as the early settlements were but 
trading-posts on the ocean or on some convenient river. 
Therefore, even though there is a slight interruption to the 



90 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

narrative, it is necessary to find for what sort of a country 
these two western nations were striving so far from the home- 
lands. 

When Europe began to trade with India, it was already oc- 
cupied by a very large and a very complex population. In- 
dia was quite different from the North American continent, 
where the aborigines were few in number, and but poorly or- 
ganized. The highest developed group in America, the Five 
Nations, was far behind the Indian groups in governmental 
power. Although the Iroquois were important in the wars 
we have been considering, they ceased to be a serious menace 
long before the peoples of India were under British control. 
The aborigines of North America are no longer a problem to 
Canada, but the people of India are causing the British 
statesmen of to-day very serious thought. 

Probably as far back as 2000 B.C. Aryans invaded India 
and found there before them well-advanced tribes known as 
Dravidians. The Aryans developed the various forms of 
Hinduism until all parts of India were more or less Hindu in 
culture. It was just about the time of the "fall" of the Ro- 
man Empire (500 a.d.) that Hinduism was at its golden age. 
But political centralization was impossible of attainment in 
so large a peninsula as that of India with so diverse a popula- 
tion. The Rajput kingdoms arose shortly after the golden 
age, and their name and descendants are preserved to-day in 
Rajputana. About this time the Huns invaded India, only 
to be assimilated. More momentous for the future of the 
country were the invasions by the Mohammedans, who be- 
gan entering the peninsula about the year 1000 a.d. Turks, 
Afghans, and Mongols came in successive hordes, culminat- 
ing in the establishment of the Mogul dynasty by Babar in 
1526. 

Babar was a lineal descendant of the famous Tartar known 
as Tamerlane. When he died in 1530, the Mohammedans 
had captured Delhi and extended their Empire to lower Ben- 
gal. Akbar the Great, Emperor from 1556 to 1605, was the 
next ruler of importance and the real founder of the Mogul 
Empire. Under him the Rajputs were reduced, the Hindus 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 91 

conciliated, and the various independent Mohammedan 
kingdoms of northern India conquered. He labored with 
less success to establish his power south of the Vindhya Hills, 
which serve as the northern boundary of peninsular India. 1 
Akbar's Empire was not unlike the great feudal creations of 
western Europe; the country was partitioned into provinces 
and ruled over by governors who were bound to make stated 
payments of revenue to their emperor. 

Akbar was succeeded by his favorite son, Jahangir, who 
ruled until 1627. Sir Thomas Roe, the agent of the East In- 
dia Company, of whom mention has already been made, was 
a resident at his court. Under Jahangir's successor incessant 
strife continued, especially in the south. With Aurungzeb, 
who became Emperor in 1658 and ruled for the rest of the 
century, the Mogul Empire attained its widest limits. Con- 
tinuous war was the penalty, for already there were evidences 
of decay. Aurungzeb's utmost efforts to conquer southern 
India were hindered by the rise of a strong Hindu confederacy 
in the central and western parts of the peninsula, composed 
of tribes known as Marathas. Under their great leader, Si- 
vaji, who died in 1680, the Marathas forced tribute from Mo- 
gul provinces in southern India and gave deadly body-blows 
to the Empire founded by Babar. WTien the British set 
about consolidating their conquests in the next century, we 
shall find that the Marathas formed the most serious obsta- 
cle to the growth of the British rule. 

After the death of Aurungzeb in 1707, the Mogul Empire 
rapidly disintegrated. The Deccan became independent 
during the first half of the eighteenth century. Oudh, in 
the central Ganges valley, and Rajputana obtained their 
freedom. The Marathas secured the cession of Malwa and 
Orissa, and wrested tribute from Bengal. The climax 
came in 1759, when the Marathas captured Delhi, the 
ancient capital, and became masters of the person of the 
emperor. 

1 This range stretches in an easterly and westerly direction a few hundred 
miles above Surat. The territory south of this line of hills is known as the 
Deccan. 



92 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

THE DUEL IN INDIA 

All this is very important for understanding the struggle of 
the British and French in India. Their contest came to its 
height just as the old Mogul Empire was declining. Various 
small independent states and subordinate governments with 
indefinite obligations to their superior states were growing 
out of the misrule of Aurungzeb and his successors. It was 
just the opportunity that the foreigners needed. Penetra- 
tion into the interior came by the use of an intricate diplo- 
macy, by the setting of one prince against another, and by 
the furnishing of European advisers and military assistance 
for ambitious or hard-pressed native rulers. 

During the War of the Austrian Succession the French 
were making efforts to establish a firmer hold in the territory 
about their trading-post of Pondichery in the Carnatic and 
around Chandernagore in Bengal by taking advantage of the 
unstable political situation we have been describing. The 
man responsible for what measure of success the French at- 
tained was Dupleix. As early as 1720 he had gone to Pondi- 
chery as a member of the Superior Council. There he gained 
a large private fortune. In 1731 he went to Chandernagore 
as Intendant and infused some of his energy into this French 
outpost in Bengal. As a result of his conspicuous accomplish- 
ments, he was made commander of the French possessions 
in India in 1741. Dupleix was a master of diplomacy, skill- 
fully reaching the hearts of eastern potentates by munificent 
presents and much ostentatious display. He used the rival- 
ries of native states to further his ends, but this meant con- 
tinual and exhausting warfare. Had his aggressive plans 
been seconded by the home government, it might have led to 
the permanent discomfiture of the British. He was not 
backed in his schemes partly because of the jealousy his im- 
mense financial gains aroused; inconsequence, Dupleix had 
to spend much of his private fortune to forward his plans. 
Moreover, the control of the sea was lacking when it was 
most needed. 

When the French and British conflict extended to India in 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 93 

1745, a British fleet appeared off Pondichery. Dupleix, at 
this juncture, gave a goodly present to the Nawab of Arcot — 
the ruler of the lowland stretch between the central plateau 
and the sea — and the Nawab, in turn, threatened vengeance 
on the British if they injured French interests. Next year, 
when the hostilities were renewed, La Bourdonnais had come 
from Madagascar with a fleet that prevented the British from 
doing harm to the French settlement; he was even able to 
capture Madras with little difficulty. But Dupleix and La 
Bourdonnais were bitter rivals. The admiral wished to re- 
store Madras to the British for a ransom, while Dupleix de- 
sired to make it a strong French port. As La Bourdonnais' 
fleet was badly injured by the monsoon — to the ill-con- 
cealed joy of Dupleix — this left the French commander at 
Pondichery free to treat Madras as he wished; in the Peace of 
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 it was restored to the British to bal- 
ance the restoration of Louisburg to France. 

In spite of this setback, Dupleix's diplomacy was at work 
to further the growth of French influence. A disputed suc- 
cession at Arcot gave him the chance to place his nominee on 
the throne. At the same time a similar condition in Haidar- 
abad resulted in the appointment of Dupleix's choice as Ni- 
zam. The Nizam of Haidarabad ruled in the Deccan proper 
and had a nominal authority over the entire southern part of 
the peninsula including the territory of the Nawab of Arcot. 
Had Dupleix been uninterrupted by the British, he might 
have laid secure foundations for French control by means of 
his artful diplomacy. 

The British, however, were fortunate in having in India 
one who was capable of opposing Dupleix successfully. 
Robert Clive had gone in 1743 to the Carnatic as a "writer" 
for the Company, but he was uncomfortable under the re- 
straint and monotony of the work. He fought a duel, and 
under fits of depression he tried to commit suicide. When 
Madras was taken by La Bourdonnais, he escaped with some 
others to Fort St. David, some twenty miles south. Here he 
became an ensign, and had already shown signs of military 
ability — a quality that Dupleix lacked — before the Peace 



94 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of Aix-la-Chapelle. While the Nawab of Arcot, who had 
recently been made the ruler under French influence, was 
besieging an English garrison at Trichonopoli, Clive con- 
ceived the idea of capturing his capital, Arcot. The work 
was brilliantly done with two hundred Europeans and three 
hundred native troops in 1751. The French were unable to 
recapture the citadel, and finally Clive and his little army 
were relieved after a fifty-day siege. 

By this bold stroke the British were able to establish, in the 
opinion of the natives, their reputation for power. Clive was 
hailed by the natives as "The Daring in War," and Pitt pro- 
claimed him a " heaven-born " general. The French, how- 
ever, continued to be powerful in the Deccan as a whole. 
It was not until toward the close of the Seven Years' War 
that they were decisively defeated in this part of India. By 
that time both La Bourdonnais and Dupleix had returned 
to France in disgrace. De Bussy remained in the Deccan 
where he labored to build up French influence. A strong 
expeditionary force was sent out to India in 1758 under 
Count Lally, who captured Fort St. David and invested 
Madras in the spring of 1759. The resistance was stubborn, 
and at the needed moment a British fleet under Admiral 
Pocock appeared to raise the siege. Pocock, in the autumn 
of 1759, successfully kept off another French fleet that had 
come to Lally's assistance, now that the latter, in his turn, 
was besieged in Pondichery. Sea-power was again the de- 
cisive factor. On land, Lally was defeated in 1760 at Wande- 
wash by Colonel Eyre Coote, and Pondichery was invested and 
starved into capitulation in January, 1761. With its capture 
the British had become supreme on the Coromandel coast. 

In Bengal the duel was carried on with equal stubbornness. 
Again Clive made possible an ultimate British victory. The 
event that brought him to Bengal was the terrible "Black 
Hole" incident at Calcutta. The local Nawab of Lower 
Bengal, Suraj-ud-daulah, was suspicious of British expan- 
sion. Possessed by an ungovernable temper, he had pursued 
one of his family to Calcutta in the year 1756. The runa- 
way, who was protected by the English, was one whose 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 95 

wealth the Nawab coveted; he accused the British of a sim- 
ilar design. The strengthening of the Calcutta fortifica- 
tions made the Nawab, in addition, suspicious that the 
British exploits in the Carnatic would be attempted in Ben- 
gal. The town was easily taken and the few Europeans who 
remained heroically to continue the hopeless defense were 
thrust for the night into a military jail at Fort William. 
One hundred and forty-six Europeans were confined in a 
room less than eighteen feet square and with two small 
barred windows opening into a low veranda. In the morn- 
ing only twenty-three remained alive. The Nawab showed 
no regret save that he had not had the pleasure of witnessing 
personally the torture of his victims. With the capture of 
Calcutta, Suraj-ud-daulah no longer feared the foreigners; 
he could govern them, he said, with a pair of slippers. The 
British let little time pass before they took measures to set 
matters aright. 

Fortunately Clive had just returned from England to 
Madras as Lieutenant-Colonel. He hastened to Bengal, 
where Calcutta was recovered with little difficulty. By 
that time war had reopened between France and England, 
and that meant war in India as well. Clive proceeded to 
capture the French fortress of Chandernagore. Through 
fear and rage the Nawab reopened hostilities against the 
British. Clive, who had anticipated that this step would be 
taken, had bribed the Nawab's commander, Mir Jafar, to 
desert in case of battle. The decisive conflict occurred in 
1757 at Plassey, seventy-five miles north of Calcutta, where 
one thousand Europeans and two thousand native troops de- 
feated fifty thousand of the Nawab's forces, who were aided 
by some fifty Frenchmen. Mir Jafar's cavalry joined the 
English camp when the victory was assured, and, as his re- 
ward, he was declared the successor of Suraj-ud-daulah as 
Nawab of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. After the capture of 
the capital, Murshidabad, immense sums were wrested from 
the country as compensation to the Company and to various 
individuals. 1 

1 The narrative of Indian development is continued in chapter xuu 



96 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



THE PEACE OF PARIS 

We have now reviewed the remarkable succession of vic- 
tories won by the British under the lead of Pitt. A victorious 
war was brought to an end by the Peace of Paris in 1763. In 
North America, France gave up Canada, Nova Scotia, and 
all the territory east of the Mississippi save New Orleans. 
France was given two small islands near Newfoundland as 
fishing stations, and in the West Indies it received back 
Guadeloupe and Martinique. Havana was restored to Spain 
and Minorca to Britain. By a previous treaty, France had 
ceded Louisiana and New Orleans to Spain. In India, 
France recovered its possessions, but could erect no fortifi- 
cations in Bengal. The English Company retained its con- 
quests of native territory. 

By this treaty France, the last great rival of Great Britain, 
retired from the struggle for a great oversea empire. The re- 
sult was owing to Great Britain's navy, to undivided interests, 
and to the leadership of William Pitt. War as well as trade 
had come to minister to British expansion. Horace Walpole's 
oft-quoted words express the opinion of a contemporary: "I 
shall burn my Greek and Latin books. They are the histo- 
ries of little people. We subdue the globe in three cam- 
paigns, and a globe as big again as it was in their days." 

With the close of the Seven Years' War, the old colonial 
Empire of England had been formed. Before describing its 
partial loss in the revolt of the American colonies and its re- 
construction as a new and greater Britain, it is necessary to 
understand the conception Englishmen had, in the days be- 
fore the American Revolution, of their lands over the seas, 
and of the way in which they were governed. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

French expansion with the story of the various colonial wars waged in 
North America is delightfully told by Francis Parkman beginning with the 
Pioneers of France in the New World and ending with the Montcalm and 
Wolfe. See also W. C. Abbott, The Expansion of Europe (2 vols., New 
York, 1918), and A. G. Bradley, The Fight with France for North America 
(Edinburgh, 1900). Older Canadian life is revealed in C. W. Colby's 



THE DUEL WITH FRANCE 97 

Canadian Types of the Old Regime, 1608-1698 (New York, 1910): The 
second volume of Channing's History of the United States and W. E. H. 
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century furnish excellent ac- 
counts. For the operations on the sea there is A. T. Mahan's The Influence 
of Sea-Power upon History, 1660-1783 (Boston, 1898) and Sir Julian S. 
Corbett's England in the Seven Years' War (2 vols., London, 1918). 

The conditions of Indian life and thought are well presented for the be- 
ginner in T. W. Holderness, Peoples and Problems of India, in the "Home 
University Library." For the French activities see G. B. Malleson, His- 
tory of the French in India, 1674-1761 (2d ed., reissued, Edinburgh, 1909). 
The beginnings of the British penetration in India will be found briefly 
treated in Sir W. W Hunter, A Brief History of the Indian Peoples (Oxford, 
1897), in A. D. Innes, A Short History of the British in India (London, 
1915), in P. E. Roberts, History of India to the End of the East India Com- 
pany (Oxford, 1916), in the "Historical Geography of the British Colo- 
nies," by Sir A. Lyall, The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in 
India (5th ed., London, 1910), and by A. Wyatt Tilby, British India, 
1600-1828 (London, 1911). A compact survey of India before and since 
the British entry is V. A. Smith's Oxford History of India (Oxford, 1920). 
An elaborate Cambridge History of India in six volumes is in process of pub- 
lication. 

The life of William Pitt is so closely bound up with Anglo-French rivalry 
that it may be well to mention the two most important lives of this great 
minister: Basil Williams, The Life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (2 vols., 
New York, 1913), is favorable to Pitt; Albert von Ruville, William Pitt, 
Earl of Chatham (English translation, 3 vols., New York, 1907), is hostile. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 

A misconception is apt to arise from the use of the word 
" system" in describing the relation of the mother country 
to the colonies in the eighteenth century. There was very 
little of the complex organization that has arisen since in the 
handling of the Empire. In this distinction is found an im- 
portant difference between the "old" and "new" colonial 
Empires of Great Britain. As colonial possessions have in- 
creased, more attention has been paid to the colonies, but the 
development of the imperial organization has always been 
more marked for its deference to local conditions than for any 
attempt to "standardize" the treatment of the oversea pos- 
sessions. The lack of system was especially inevitable in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for the idea of em- 
pire was comparatively new, especially of empire as wide- 
spread as that of Britain and so widely separated by stretches 
of sea. Nevertheless, the imperial structure that was taking 
shape bore the impress of the master minds that were creat- 
ing it. It was receiving the cultural heritage that had been 
accumulating in the homeland, and was already significant 
for the adaptation to varying environments of the ideals 
which have always served as the strongest of bonds in greater 
Britain. In this chapter we shall try to find what sort of an 
empire, in interests and government, had evolved by the time 
of the signal victory over France in 1763. 

A review of the origins of the Empire will make clear that 
the ruling motive throughout its growth had been the foster- 
ing of trade and commerce. We have seen how the lure of 
valuable products for enriching the kingdom and individuals 
had led to daring voyages and venturesome exploration. In- 
deed, the efforts to obtain oversea possessions had not been 
urged so much by the Government as by persons interested 
in trading developments and quickly gotten riches. The 
lack of royal initiative is especially noticeable. Various 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 99 

companies and small groups of zealous men opened new fields 
with little, if any, encouragement from the Government. In 
America, individuals and proprietors were responsible for 
many colonies, while the Empire's inception in India was the 
result of the activities of a trading company. It was not 
until the eighteenth century that the Empire became a 
matter of serious concern to the British Government. Then 
the great duel with France and the wonderful increase of co- 
lonial possessions as the result of successful wars gave the 
oversea dominion a much greater importance. 

MERCANTILISM 

The key to Britain's relation to its colonies is found in 
trade. During the eighteenth century the commerce of Eng- 
land was developing with great rapidity. In the course of 
the century it increased five or six fold, with the exports con- 
tinually overbalancing the imports. The trade with the 
colonies was only a minor part of the total, that with Europe 
distancing the trade with Asia, Africa, and America com- 
bined. About the middle of the century the American trade 
was slightly more valuable than that with Asia, but only 
about one sixth as valuable as that with Europe. The phe- 
nomenal advance in commerce that began with the third 
quarter of the century will be accounted for in a later chap- 
ter. But even by 1750 there had been a marked accelera- 
tion in commerce, attended by a growing amount of regula- 
tion that it might be fostered discriminately. The regula- 
tion, such as it was, was entirely in the interests of home 
industry; even the development of national power and of the 
colonies in and for themselves was strictly subordinated to 
the demands of England's manufacturers and shippers. 

There is abundant illustration of this attitude in Britain's 
relation to its great trade rivals and to its colonies. The 
sale of finished cloth and the opportunity for adequate mar- 
kets explains the famous Methuen Treaty of 1703 with Por- 
tugal. The Portuguese market had been closed to England in 
the interest of home manufacture, but Methuen was able to 
reopen it by granting Portuguese wines, entrance into Eng- 



100 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

land at two thirds the duty paid on French wines. Bur- 
gundy was replaced by port, and port could be consumed in 
good quantity with the virtuous feeling that English industry 
was profiting as a result of this pleasant reciprocal arrange- 
ment. In 1713 there was an effort on the part of friends of 
France to give French goods comparatively easy entrance 
into England. A storm of protest occurred, and public opin- 
ion prevented the injury which it was felt would come to 
home industry as a result of favoring France. A relaxation 
of the trading relations with France did not come until the 
close of the American Revolution. 

This attitude toward commerce and industry, dominant in 
Europe from the very beginnings of the great colonial em- 
pires until the latter part of the eighteenth century, is usu- 
ally known as the " mercantile system." It is sometimes 
called "Colbertism," from the restrictive over-regulation of 
trade in France during the time of Colbert, the minister of 
Louis XIV. The precious metals could only be obtained 
from abroad, and yet an adequate supply of money was re- 
garded as essential, especially in the conduct of the numerous 
wars. The stock of money, it was believed, could only be re- 
tained and increased by a favorable balance of trade — by 
the selling of more than was purchased, thus bringing bul- 
lion into the country. As a consequence, imports were re- 
stricted. English saltmakers, for example, in the seventeenth 
century urged the prohibition of foreign salt on the ground 
that it was the "wisdom of a kingdom or nation to prevent 
the importation of any manufacture from abroad which 
might be a detriment to their own at home, for if the coin of a 
nation be carried out to pay for foreign manufactures and 
our own people left unemployed, then in case a war happen 
with our potent neighbors, the people are incapacitated to 
pay taxes for the support of the same." * 

Probably the most important book published during the 
early development of the mercantile system was by Sir 
Thomas Mun; this work, issued in 1664, had the significant 
title: England's Treasure by Foreign Trade; or the Balance 

1 Quoted in Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, h, 310. 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 101 

of our Trade the Rule of our Treasure. Another influential 
work of the same period was Sir Josiah Child's The Nature 
of Plantations and their Consequences to Great Britain seri- 
ously Considered, which first appeared in 1669. Among other 
things the author endeavored to prove "that all Colonies 
or Plantations do endanger their Mother-Kingdoms, whereof 
the Trades of such Plantations are not confined in severe laws, 
and good execution of those laws to the Mother-Country." 
Charles D'Avenant, Inspector-General of Exports and Im- 
ports, published in 1698 a pamphlet On the Plantation Trade. 
His work and that of William Wood, The Great Advantage of our 
Colonies and Plantations to Great Britain, published in 1728, 
reechoed the ideas of Sir Josiah Child. 1 An influential work 
of the early eighteenth century had the title : The Trade and 
Navigation of Great Britain Considered shewing that the surest 
way for a Nation to increase the Riches is to prevent the Importa- 
tion of such Foreign Commodities as may be raised at Home. 
In the correct growth of this system it was necessary that 
the Government interfere more and more by the use of the 
law for the regulation and restriction that would make mer- 
cantilism work satisfactorily. Navigation acts, commercial 
treaties, and import duties were numerous. Gradually this 
sort of supervision became so extreme as to cause a reaction 
toward the idea that non-interference and the action of nat- 
ural law would work better for the country than the restric- 
tive plans of Colbert and the mercantilists. The Physiocrats 
in France, among whom Turgot was the most prominent, 
urged an attitude of laissez-faire. In England Adam Smith 
published, in 1776, his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of 
the Wealth of Nations. Its influence was tremendous in over- 
throwing the old system of over-regulation. Fortunately for 
England, it came at a time when the phenomenal industrial 
advance could not suffer from foreign competition. The in- 
auguration of this system of non-interference is beyond the 
scope of the present chapter. 

1 The works of Sir Josiah Child, Charles D'Avenant, and William Wood 
were reprinted together under the title of Select Dissertations in the year 1775 
to assist in the settlement of the "unhappy differences between Great Britain 
and America." 



102 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The application of restrictive measures to the colonies was 
but natural. Home industry was not thought to include co- 
lonial industry, and the latter was made subordinate in the 
effort to make English industry independent of foreign com- 
petition. To this end the colonies were to be excluded from 
trade with foreign states. The products of the colonies were 
to come to England, where they would either serve England 
or would go to foreign countries with the mother country as 
a profiting intermediary. It was even desired that England 
should be the emporium for the trade among the different 
parts of the Empire. In accordance with this theory the 
measure of value attained by the various colonies was in pro- 
portion, not to their internal development or size or possibili- 
ties, but only to their value for the commercial development 
of England. 

India aroused a good deal of concern to English industrial 
interests during the eighteenth century. Anxiety regarding 
India was the result not only of the slight sale of English 
manufactures in India but also in consequence of the 
import into England of the goods that could be used in the 
place of the textile fabrics made at home. Indian muslins 
and silks were attacked on the ground that their introduction 
affected the price of wool and the employment of two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand people in home manufactures. In 
1697 a weaver of London issued a pamphlet against the East 
Indian trade entitled The Great Necessity and Advantage of 
Preserving our Own Manufactures. In the same year, a weaver 
of the same city published Reasons Humbly Offered for the 
Passing of a Bill for the Hindering of the Home Consumption of 
East India Silks. Even the " Fann " makers had a grievance 
on account of the East Indian competition. In 1700 an Act 
was passed restricting the Indian trade so far as the home 
market was concerned, as it "must inevitably be to the great 
Detriment of this Kingdom by exhausting the Treasure 
thereof and melting down the Coine, and takeing away the 
Labour of the People." 1 The woolen industries of England 
finally succeeded in procuring the passage in 1721 of the 

1 Cunningham, op. cit., II, 465. 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 103 

Calico Act. By this measure Indian cotton goods could not 
be sold, used for upholstering furniture or worn in England. 
As yet Britain's cotton industry had not assumed impor- 
tance. 

The southern American colonies were valuable for their 
cotton, rice, and indigo. There was no competition with 
England here, and every effort was made to foster and 
monopolize this trade. The West Indies were even more 
highly valued for their products. These sugar colonies of- 
fered supplies that were much needed, and which brought 
them into direct competition with the French sugar colonies. 
Immense sums were expended in the commerce and indus- 
try of these islands. Careful measures were taken, as we 
shall note presently, that this money and interest should 
not be mistakenly applied. The West Indian islands were 
also of great value as the emporium of the slave-trade, and 
throughout the eighteenth century a thriving business in 
negroes was carried on, not only for the Spanish colonies, 
by virtue of the Asiento, but for the English colonies as well. 
Liverpool seems to have profited most by this trade, but 
New England ships, also, did a considerable business in 
slaves. 1 

The colonies north of Virginia proved of less interest to 
England. English statesmen felt no special interest in New 
England, for it produced little that England did not have and 
was a constant menace by its possible competition. The 
Board of Control declared in 1732 that there were "more 
trades carried on and manufactures set up in the provinces on 

1 Charles D'Avenant is particularly clear as to the place of negroes in the 
prosperity of the West Indies: "It would much conduce to the support and 
prosperity of the sugar and tobacco Plantations to put the African trade into 
some better order. So great a part of our foreign business arising from these 
colonies, they ought undoubtedly to have all due Encouragement, and to be 
plentifully supplied and at reasonable Rates, with Negroes, to meliorate and 
cultivate the land. The Labour of these slaves is the principal foundation of 
our Riches there; upon which account we should take all proper measures to 
bring them on easy terms. ... It must certainly be prudent in any trade, manu- 
facture or business to render the first material as cheap as possible. Slaves are 
the first and most necessary material for planting; from whence follows that all 
measures should be taken that may produce such a plenty of them, as may be 
an Encouragement to the Industrious Planter." Select Dissertations, p. 55. 



104 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the continent of America to the northward of Virginia, prej- 
udicial to the trade and manufactures of Great Britain, than 
in any other of the British colonies." 1 This but restated the 
opinion of Sir Josiah Child. He wrote of New England, 
which he praised for frugality, industry, and temperance: 
"Although men ought to envy that virtue and wisdom in 
others, yet I think it is the duty of every good man primarily 
to respect the welfare of his native country; I cannot omit to 
notice the particulars wherein Old England suffers diminu- 
tion by the growth of these colonies settled in New England. 
All our Plantations except that of New England produce 
commodities of different natures from those of this Kingdom, 
whereas New England produces generally the same." 2 

The colonial woolen industry was small, but it aroused the 
jealousy of English manufacturers, and an attempt was made 
to check it by Act of Parliament in 1698. The making of 
hats in the American colonies came to the knowledge of the 
London Company of Feltmakers; thereupon, they procured 
an Act of Parliament in 1732 by which the export of hats from 
one colony to another was prohibited. The beginning of an 
iron industry in these colonies was looked at askance, as well. 
It never competed seriously with English iron, as the Ameri- 
cans did not make so fine a grade of material. Yet in 1750 
an Act, which allowed the free importation of colonial pig- 
iron into England, prohibited the American manufacture 
beyond that stage. 

In the New England colonies and Pennsylvania there was 
a large business in the building of ships. There were excel- 
lent facilities for this industry along the American seaboard 
and an abundance of raw materials to draw upon. Al- 
though the Thames shipbuilders in 1724 complained of this 
competition, nothing was done to prevent this industry ex- 
cept that the raw materials needed for the building of ships 
and the supplies for naval purposes were sought in the col- 
onies. Attempts were made to reserve areas of forests for 
providing masts and spars, and bounties were given on spars 

1 Quoted in Greene, Provincial America, p. 278. 
1 Select Dissertations, p. 21. 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 105 

and masts, pitch tar and hemp. In 1721 Parliament passed 
a law reserving for the use of the royal navy all trees fit for 
masts not growing on private lands in the colonies north of 
Pennsylvania. The interest shown in these supplies is an 
evidence, not only of commercial policy, but also of the grow- 
ing importance of the navy. 

The English attitude toward Ireland was in line with that 
toward the other plantations. The nearness of Ireland to 
England and the consequently greater danger of effective 
competition, if its industries developed, led to more oppres- 
sive measures here than elsewhere. Irish cloth manufac- 
turers were prohibited from exporting their goods to other 
colonies, to England, or to foreign nations. At the close of 
the seventeenth century, bar-iron was permitted to come 
into England without the duty previously levied, but this 
manufacture, along with the exportation of timber to Eng- 
land for shipping purposes, brought about the serious de- 
pletion of the Irish forests. Ireland's wealth was for Eng- 
land's use. Because of nearness, Ireland suffered from the 
mercantile system, but reaped few of the advantages of 
distant colonies producing materials not obtainable in the 
mother country. The retarded development of Ireland, as 
compared with the self-governing dominions and the hesi- 
tancy of England to grant to Ireland institutions existing in 
other parts of the Empire, has found its raison d'itre very 
largely in their geographical proximity. 

It must also be borne in mind that, until the Organic Union 
of Scotland and England in 1707, Scotland was a foreign land 
so far as British law and administration were concerned. 

NAVIGATION ACTS 

The commercial code of England's old colonial policy was 
based on a series of navigation acts, which were designed to 
bring to pass the conditions described in the preceding para- 
graphs. Reference has already been made to the Navigation 
Act of 1651, directed against the Dutch shortly before the 
First Dutch War. 1 But the law known usually as the "First 

1 See p. 67. 



106 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Navigation Act" was passed in 1660. By it the importation 
of goods from Asia, Africa, or America, whether British or 
foreign, was confined to English or colonial vessels; goods of 
foreign growth, production, or manufacture, brought in Eng- 
lish or colonial vessels to Great Britain, must come directly; 
and foreign vessels were forbidden to take goods of their own 
country to the colonies, and they were shut out from the 
coastwise trade. In addition, certain "enumerated" articles 
— sugar, tobacco, cotton-wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, and 
other dyeing woods — could be carried only to England. 

In 1663 appeared a Second Navigation Act. By prohibit- 
ing the importation into the colonies of European commod- 
ities unless they were first landed in England, the mother 
country was made the staple for the colonies. Exception was 
made of salt for the fisheries, wines from the Azores, servants, 
horses, and victuals from Ireland and Scotland. The pre- 
amble admirably states the mercantile ideal: "In regard his 
Majesties Plantations beyond the Sea are inhabited and peo- 
pled by His Subjects of this His Kingdome of England, For 
the maintaining of a greater correspondence and kindnesse 
between them and keepeing them in a firmer dependence 
upon it, and rendring them yet more beneficiall and advanta- 
gious unto it in the farther Imployment and Encrease of Eng- 
lish Shipping and Seamen, vent of English Woollen and other 
Commodities . . . and makeing this Kingdom a Staple not 
onely of the Commodities of those Plantations but alsoe of 
the Commodities of other Countryes and Places. ... Be it 
enacted, etc." 1 

The Third Navigation Act of 1672 prevented the traffic in 
enumerated articles between one colony and another except 
on payment of a duty similar to that required when they 
were shipped to England. These three acts were in force 
when the Revolution of 1688 took place. But it was found 
that they were neither obeyed nor effectively executed. The 
result was another Act in 1696, which was passed to prevent 
frauds and regulate abuses. The oaths of royal governors 
were made more stringent, naval officers had to give security 

1 See Macdonald, Select Charters, for the text of the Navigation Acts. 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 107 

for the performance of their duties, all colonial laws contrary 
to the navigation laws were declared null and void, and most 
stringent measures were taken to suppress Scotch and other 
alien traders. 

Enumerated articles were added from time to time. In 
1705 rice and molasses were put on the list. Naval stores 
were added shortly after, and copper and furs in 1722. 
When the authorities found New Englanders buying sugar 
and molasses more cheaply from the French and Dutch West 
Indies than from their sister colonies in the Caribbean, the 
British sugar islands petitioned Parliament for relief. In 
1733 the so-called " Molasses Act" was passed, placing pro- 
hibitive duties on foreign sugar, molasses, and rum imported 
into the British colonies. 

These acts were the chief of some half a hundred passed 
during this period to " encourage trade." They were sup- 
posedly in force during the eighteenth century, but there was 
a systematic violation of them and a large measure of illicit 
commerce. For example, the Scotch did a thriving business 
with the colonies before 1707. The distinctions between 
trader and smuggler and pirate were poorly denned. In ad- 
dition, the navy of England was not yet adequate to enforce 
its maritime regulations; zealous officials like Edward Ran- 
dolph and Robert Quary found no end of evasion, and expe- 
rienced great difficulty in enforcing even partially the regu- 
lations committed to their care. Randolph made a report 
in 1697, in which he cites fifteen vessels loaded with tobacco 
for England that did not land their goods there, twenty-two 
vessels trading with Scotland, and a Dutch vessel and a Nor- 
wegian carrier doing a colonial business. A large trade was 
carried on with the Canary Islands, with France by way of 
the Newfoundland fisheries, and with Holland through the 
Dutch colony of Surinam. At the close of the Seven Years' 
War, renewed colonial interest led to an attempt to enforce 
these acts and others that would bind the colonies closer to 
England. 



108 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 

The emphasis that has been placed on commerce and in- 
dustry in the old colonial system should not exclude from 
consideration the political relations borne by the colonies to 
the homeland. The lack of a real colonial policy is evident 
when the administrative side is considered, for no system of 
government was considered that did not have a commercial 
aspect. 

From the Restoration of 1660 to the Seven Years' War, 
there was marked progress in England in the development 
of its institutional life. During the years following the de- 
parture of James II, the legislative side of the Government 
subordinated the Crown more and more. The development 
of the cabinet system at this time and its dependence upon 
the majority party in Parliament kept harmony in the home 
Government. In the colonies the ideals that found expres- 
sion in the struggles against the early Stuarts were treasured 
as guides for their political growth. Beyond the sea, how- 
ever, there was no such growing harmony between the execu- 
tive and the legislative as there was in England. This differ- 
ence in development was probably inevitable, as England 
was not prepared to allow a movement parallel to that at 
home to go on in the colonies, even though the inhabitants 
of the oversea possessions were regarded as having, in theory, 
the same kind of rights as Englishmen at home. If the 
colonial governors had been subordinated to the local legis- 
latures, it would have meant " responsible government," a 
privilege won by the great colonies of the Empire during 
the middle of the nineteenth century. The privileges that 
Englishmen had acquired by the Bill of Rights were not 
regarded as extending to the colonies. 

Early English colonial policy had been very easy-going; 
the government of new colonies was left to individuals or 
corporations acting under royal charters or by simple per- 
mission of the Crown. Before the accession of James II, 
Virginia and New Hampshire were the only royal provinces 
on the American continent, although at this time there were 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 109 

twelve distinct colonial governments on the American main- 
land within the boundaries of the later revolting colonies. 1 
James II, during his short reign, made great efforts to ex- 
tend his absolutist ideas to other colonies. In 1684, on the 
eve of James' accession, Massachusetts had lost its charter 
on account of flagrant violations of the Navigation Laws. 
Taking advantage of this change of government, the King 
appointed Edmund Andros Governor of the Dominion of New 
England, which was intended to include all the territory north 
of Pennsylvania. But the Revolution of 1688 put an end 
to James' government in America as well as in England. 
Thereafter matters went on without great change from the 
conditions before the interference of James, save that Mas- 
sachusetts was given a new charter — less liberal than its 
predecessor — and New York was made a royal province. 

Up to 1689 there had been almost no parliamentary con- 
trol and but little Crown interference in colonial govern- 
ment. William III, however, was advised to bring the col- 
onies into greater dependence upon the Crown. It was an 
excellent opportunity to put in order colonial affairs, but the 
newly chosen King was too busily engaged in European mat- 
ters to do anything constructive. As a result of the military 
character of his reign, military powers were given the gover- 
nors of some colonies. The Governor of New York was 
entrusted with the command of the Connecticut military 
forces; Rhode Island was subjected in like manner to the 
royal representative in Massachusetts. To the three royal 
provinces of Virginia, New York, and New Hampshire there 
were added, by 1760, New Jersey, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, and Nova Scotia. 

As time went on, the ruling of the colonies took more and 
more of the time of the executive at home. The Privy 
Council and especially the secretaries of state gave part of 
their attention to oversea matters. In 1696 the King au- 
thorized the organization of the Board of Commissioners for 
Trade and Plantations, known commonly as the "Board of 
Trade." The duties of this famous committee were many; 

1 The royal province of Nova Scotia had not yet been acquired. 



110 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

trade conditions and improvement, the furthering of manu- 
factures, trade in the plantations and its development, and 
the oversight of colonial government were some of the mat- 
ters that came to their attention. The greater part of their 
time was taken up with the affairs of the American colonies, 
including, of course, the West Indies. The Board was not 
powerful, however, as it served as little more thar an investi- 
gating and advisory committee, with powers of nomination 
and remonstrance. During its early years it exercised a 
fairly large measure of influence, but its power continually 
declined and whatever consistent policy it advocated re- 
ceived no adequate support. Long before its abolition at 
the close of the American Revolution, it had ceased to be ef- 
fective. In 1784 a committee of the Privy Council on "all 
matters pertaining to trade and foreign plantations" was es- 
tablished; two years later, a new committee was formed in 
its place. These committees served much the same purpose 
as the former Board of Trade. 

The Privy Council, the secretaries of state and the Board 
of Trade were not the only executive bodies that had to do 
with the colonies. The Treasury Department with its audi- 
tor-general of plantation revenues, the commissioners of cus- 
toms, the registrar of emigrants to the plantations, and the 
Post-Office, as well as the paymaster-general of the forces, 
the Admiralty, and the War Office, were concerned in colo- 
nial affairs. Both the House of Lords and the House of Com- 
mons could make formal inquiries and recommendations. In 
addition, there was considerable supervision of colonial laws 
by the use of the royal disallowance and by act of Parlia- 
ment. For example, in 1754, George II disallowed eight 
acts of North Carolina. During the period from 1689 to 
1763, this medley of administrative machinery did not work 
to the serious inconvenience of the colonies, because of the 
inefficiency and laxity of the various engineers that had to 
do with the composite and complicated mechanism. Even 
government at home was neglected by the pursuance of easy 
courses and the prevalence of corruption, and the colonies 
were subject to the same conditions. 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 111 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF INDIA 

The problems that arose in the administration of Bengal 
were quite distinct from those growing out of the relation of 
the American colonies to the mother country. India was 
not a colony, but a complicated group of native states, with 
which relations were had through a trading company. The 
chief political task of England in India was the regulation 
and restraint of the great East India Company, as it laid ter- 
ritorial bases for its business success. In the seventeenth 
century the Company faced a great deal of opposition. This 
distant trade was declared to be injurious to England's mari- 
time interests, for it took to distant seas shipping that should 
be nearer home. Much opposition was aroused by the nec- 
essarily large exportation of bullion for use in eastern trade, 
as there was no great demand for English goods in the East. 
The mercantilist theory of the balance of trade and the con- 
trol of the money supply came into seeming opposition with 
this aspect of English commercial life. Besides, those who 
wanted to carry on business ventures in the East and were 
not in the Company naturally disliked and fought a monop- 
oly that hindered their desires. These " interlopers' ' fur- 
nished much trouble. 

When William became King, the East India Company hoped 
to have its privileges put into more permanent shape by act of 
Parliament. It received in 1693 two additional charters, by 
which its monopoly was continued for twenty-one years, but 
no act of Parliament made its position secure. The feeling of 
the House of Commons was so hostile that they permitted 
the formation of a new or General Company in addition to the 
older organization known as the " London Company." The 
conflict of these two trading concerns became so bitter that 
they were united in 1708 with privileges of exclusive trade 
until 1733. As 1733 approached, the agitation was renewed, 
but the Company, by liberal gifts and later by loans to the 
Government during the War of the Austrian Succession, 
obtained an extension of its privileges until 1780. Before 
that time arrived, however, further changes took place. 1 

1 See pp. 181 ff. 



112 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The phenomenal success of British arms in India has been 
related. The Company's servants found boundless oppor- 
tunities for enriching themselves as well as their employers, 
and their actions led to much criticism of the Company. As 
the result of an inquiry in 1768, its administration was found 
to be very corrupt. Thereupon an Act was passed defining 
the financial obligations of the Company to the Government. 
Five years later (1773), Lord North's Regulating Act brought 
about an extensive reorganization of the finances of the Com- 
pany as well as of the Government of India. A supreme 
court was established, the Governor of Bengal was made 
Governor-General, and was assisted by a council of four 
members appointed by Parliament. 

As the Company's affairs continued in a condition of seri- 
ous difficulty, further measures were taken in the next decade 
for strengthening the public control. There was a parlia- 
mentary inquiry in 1781. Charles James Fox introduced an 
India Bill in 1783, which was intended to bring about a thor- 
ough reorganization. He proposed to give the government 
of India into the hands of seven commissioners appointed by 
Parliament, who were to hold office for four years and then be 
succeeded by appointees of the Crown. They were to be 
trustees of the Company's property, which was to be admin- 
istered for them by a subordinate council of directors. Ex- 
tensive administrative reforms were also included, which were 
aimed at ending the corruption that had caused so much criti- 
cism. Despite its excellencies, the Bill was defeated, for it 
was regarded as a party measure and was sharply criticized 
by those who wished the patronage to be in the King's hands 
rather than with Fox and his friends, if but for a time. 

In the next year the younger Pitt succeeded where Fox had 
failed. A board of control appointed by the King henceforth 
supervised the civil and military administration. The Com- 
pany retained most of the patronage and the appointment 
of the Governor-General, the Presidents, and Councils in In- 
dia, appointments that were subject to the approval of the 
King, who also bad the power of removal. The dual sys- 
tem of control brought about by this Bill remained the form 



THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM IIS 

of government until the final change took place in 1858. The 
compromising character of this measure was the chief reason 
for its success; it also illustrates the halting progress toward 
a unified system of colonial control. 

If this review of the old colonial system reveals no consist- 
ent British policy, we must not be too eager to condemn the 
Government. The Empire was vast, and was distributed 
over distant parts of the globe. India, the West Indies, 
Newfoundland, Africa, Hudson Bay, and North America, 
furnished no unified group of problems. Ireland, too, mu?^ 
be thought of as a part of the colonial Empire of this time, 
and its treatment is to be included under colonial policy. 
In addition, the problems were comparatively nev?, for 
Great Britain had no worthy precedents to follow. T he old 
Roman Empire, the later German one of the Middl e Ages, 
those of Venice and Spain, were not guides to an int elligent, 
modern colonial administration. The distance between the 
mother country and the colonies and between the colonies 
themselves was much greater than it is in our day. The 
best that could be done was to treat the colonies from the 
commercial point of view with the interests of the mother 
country primary, and to handle each colonial difficulty as it 
arose, in terms largely economic and financial. The revolt of 
the American colonies in 1775 was the logical result of the old 
colonial system. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

An excellent treatment of the old colonial system, within small limits, is; 
to be found in C. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period (New York, 1912), in 
the "Home University Library." Three volumes of the "American Na- 
tion" series should be mentioned: E. B. Greene, Provincial America (New 
York, 1905) ; C. M. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (New York, 1904) ;; 
and G. E. Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution (New York, 1905). 
Miss Mary P. Clarke has contributed an article on "The Board of Trade 
at Work" to the American Historical Review (October, 1911). An im- 
portant survey of the old colonial system is found in the three works of 
G. L. Beer: Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660 (New York,, 
1908); The Old Colonial System, 1660-1754 (2 vols., New York, 1912); and 
British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765 (New York, 1907). O. M. Dickerson, 
American Colonial Government, 1696-1765 (Cleveland, 1912), is a study of 
the Board of Trade in its relation to the American colonies. A compre- 



114 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

hensive treatment by a well-known British authority is H. E. Egerton's A 

Short History of British Colonial Policy (5th ed., London, 1918) . There are 
briefer treatments in G. B. Hurst, The Old Colonial System (Manchester, 
1905), and A. P. Newton, The Old Empire and the New (London, 1917). 
The fourth book of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations treats of the mercan- 
tile system as applied to the colonies. The texts of the various acts are 
found in convenient form in Macdonald's Select Charters and other Docu- 
ments illustrative of American History, 1606-1775 (New York, 1899). 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES 

The conclusion of the Seven Years' War brought British 
expansion to a grand climax. The jubilation was natural. 
Among the evidences of pride was the record kept of world- 
affairs in the Annual Register established by Dodsley in 1759, 
and for which Edmund Burke was engaged to write the polit- 
ical accounts from year to year. It evidently served a grow- 
ing interest. Ordinarily the various chapters dealt princi- 
pally with the continental states. The volume for 1775 is 
unique in the prominence given to colonial matters; one hun- 
dred and forty pages are devoted to the troubles in America, 
and only one chapter, the last, reviewed European matters of 
importance. 

The opening paragraph of this volume states the cause for 
the dark times that had succeeded the glorious exploits of 
the Seven Years' War. "It happens most unfortunately 
this year, that our own public affairs take the lead of those of 
Europe, and have in a great degree absorbed all the matters 
of political speculation. . . . The great disturbers of mankind 
contemplate the new and unthought of spectacle we exhibit 
to the world, and perhaps eagerly predict the advantages 
which they may derive from its fatal consequences. It need 
scarcely be mentioned that the unhappy contest in which we 
are involved with our colonies is the event which has thus ex- 
cited the attention of mankind. Those colonies, which were 
so long our strength and glory, whose rapid growth and as- 
tonishing increase mocked the calculations of politicians and 
outstripped the speculations of philosophers; those colonies, 
which equally excited the apprehension of our enemies and 
the envy of our friends, still attract the eyes of the world to 
them and to us, as a common center. ... It is no longer our 
task to describe devastation in Poland or slaughter on the 
Danube, The evil is at home." 1 

l Annual Register, 1,775, Preface, and p. 2. 



116 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

It seems indeed strange that one of the brightest periods in 
the history of the Empire should be followed so soon by such 
a disastrous occurrence as the loss of the American colonies. 
It was much more of a calamity than it may seem to the 
modern observer looking back one hundred and fifty years. 
The thirteen colonies were the fairest portions of the Old 
Empire. They included by 1770 a population of nearly two 
millions of people. Although some of the American conti- 
nental colonies were not the most valuable feeders of the 
mother country commercially, their large population con- 
sumed over two million pounds' worth of exports annually at 
the close of the Seven Years' War; this was twice the amount 
used by the West Indian colonies. New Brunswick and 
Nova Scotia were as yet practically undeveloped, and Can- 
ada did not seem to have in it the possibilities of the Canada 
of to-day. As a matter of fact, there was considerable dis- 
cussion in 1763 as to whether England should take from the 
French their possessions on the American mainland or the 
island of Guadeloupe. The loss of the American colonies 
seemed the beginning of the end of a great colonial empire. 

Prophecies had not been wanting that such an occurrence 
would take place. Montesquieu, in 1730, had written that 
England would be the first nation to lose its colonies as a re- 
sult of the laws of trade and navigation. A little later D'Ar- 
genson had uttered a similar prediction, and that of Turgot 
is well known. He likened colonies to fruit that remained on 
the parent stem only until it was ripe; Turgot declared that 
America, in like fashion, would some time separate from the 
British parent. 

When Canada was added to the British dominions, prophr 
ecy regarding the American colonies became more concrete. 
In 1761 the Duke of Bedford had written to Newcastle: "I 
don't know whether the neighbourhood of the French to our 
American colonies was not the greatest security for their de- 
pendence on the mother country." 1 Kalm, the Swedish bot- 
anist who traveled in the colonies in 1748, in his Travels into 
North America declared that the pressure of the French in 

1 Quoted in Charming, n, 596. 



THE REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES 117 

Canada was all that held the colonies in submission. Wil- 
liam Burke, a kinsman of the famous statesman, in a pam- 
phlet in 1760, felt that there was serious danger for English 
control if French pressure were removed; for the colonists 
were "numerous, hardy and independent, communicating 
little or not at all with England." The French statesman, 
Choiseul, is reported to have expressed surprise that Pitt in- 
tended to take Canada as the price of peace in 1763 since the 
English colonies would not fail to shake off their dependence 
the moment Canada should be ceded. 

This fact seemed equally cogent when the Revolution had 
actually begun. In 1776 Turgot published a Memoir e on the 
attitude France and Spain should take toward England's 
colonial trouble. In referring to a suggestion that Canada 
should be retaken, he wrote: " It is a great advantage to us 
that England possesses Canada to-day for the Americans no 
longer see behind them enemies that can cause them uneasi- 
ness as they look toward probable independence." 1 The 
famous Dean of Gloucester, Josiah Tucker, published Four 
Tracts in 1776. He diagnoses the cause for the existing 
troubles as follows: "It was not the Stamp Act which in- 
creased or heightened these ill humours in the colonies; it was 
rather the reduction of Canada. . . . From the moment in 
which Canada came into the possession of England, an end 
was put to the sovereignty of the mother country over her 
colonies." 2 It is certain that the idea was widespread in 
both Great Britain and France that colonial rebellion in 
America bore a direct relation to the acquisition of Canada 
by the English. 

CAUSES FOR REBELLION 

Such a serious rupture of the Empire cannot be based solely 
on so simple an external cause. Many conditions existed 
that were probably more responsible for this revolt and the 
break-up of the old colonial system. One important factor 

1 CEuvres (Paris, 1844), n, 555. 

2 Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects (3d ed., Gloucester, 1776), 
pp. 160, 161. 



118 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

was the nature of the navigation and trade laws. The at- 
titude of the British Government toward its dependencies 
was dominated by the commercial ideals sketched in the 
preceding chapter. Although these laws were not at all 
times enforced, the commercial attitude is well expressed by 
them, and they were constantly at hand as a disturber of 
the possible good relations between the mother country and 
its colonies. 

Serious objection to this attitude of Great Britain toward 
its possessions would have been pronounced before the close 
of the Seven Years' War had the laws been rigidly enforced. 
But they were not. Smuggling had become as widespread 
and respectable in the colonies as it was at this time on the 
coasts of England itself. It was either connived at or the 
officials were helpless to prevent the practice. Indeed, it is 
estimated that during the sixty years before the Revolution 
began, Great Britain paid out, in order to uphold its commer- 
cial system, a sum exceeding the value of the whole real and 
personal property of the colonies. About 1755, an attempt 
was made to improve the situation by the use of writs of 
assistance, which authorized customs officers to use every 
facility in their search for contraband goods. 

The inconveniences of the colonial system worked hard- 
ship not only on the colonial merchant; it caused irritation to 
the large group of consumers as well. When the Seven Years' 
War began, the situation became more complicated than ever. 
The illicit trade then became treasonable, since much of it 
was with the French West Indies. French colonies received 
supplies from the British colonies. The British navy was 
greatly hampered in prosecuting the war as a result of this 
trade. At the close of the struggle, it was not surprising 
that Great Britain should expect the colonies to share to 
some extent the expense of their own defense, especially as 
they had garnered wealth during the conflict by what seemed 
unpatriotic means. As a result, a more rigid policy of law 
enforcement ensued. The proposed taxation was not in- 
tended for the support of the home government but only to 
pay in part for the upkeep of an army stationed in America 



THE REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES 119 

for the defense of the colonies. With this new policy the 
Revolution really began. 

It was not so much economic restriction as a feeling of in- 
dustrial and commercial independence that led to the grow- 
ing dissatisfaction. The effects of the British commercial 
system have often been overestimated, as the causes for the 
discontent have been sought. The grievances suffered by the 
colonies in connection with trade were not so very serious, 
and Englishmen were frequently at a loss to explain the im- 
mense furore aroused. The truth is that the colonies by that 
time had grown away from the mother country to such an ex- 
tent that they were not willing to recognize even moderate 
restrictions. The very evasion of the laws of trade by smug- 
gling had developed this independence. When the war with 
France came, they felt no particular compunction in contin- 
uing their commercial enterprises along the usual lines. 

The independent spirit, expressed in this reaction to the 
stricter colonial policy of the years following the Peace of 
Paris, is to be explained, therefore, by the causes that brought 
about a sturdy, self-centered, and independent type of co- 
lonial. Life on the frontier has always bred men of strong and 
pronounced individuality. Struggles with the Indians and a 
stubborn soil served as teachers of self-reliance. The severe 
and strenuous conditions of colonial life must always be 
borne in mind in appraising their apparent thoughtlessness 
of the mother country. The very physical remoteness of 
colonies three thousand miles away had a powerful liberal- 
izing effect. 

The results of physical remoteness and frontier life were 
even more significantly expressed in the constitutional de- 
velopment of the colonies. New England showed its indi- 
viduality in an early attainment of practical self-government. 
It will be recalled x that the Company which received the 
charter of 1629 removed to America and became the colony. 
In Massachusetts Bay and its offshoots, Rhode Island and 
Connecticut, and in its neighbor, Plymouth, democracy re- 
ceived a remarkable expression in the town meeting and the 

1 See p. 43. 



120 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

congregational system. In Virginia a House of Burgesses 
had been authorized in 1619, and during the period of the 
Commonwealth this colony enjoyed the privileges of prac- 
tical self-government. In other colonies varying degrees of 
the representative system were reached, so that their own 
self-constituted life had a fair expression. This resulted 
in an unconscious estrangement from the mother country. 
Freedom of institutional life was to a great extent the re- 
sult of extremely liberal charters given to foster settlement. 
In every case the colonies that revolted were indebted to 
private individuals or companies for their formation, and not 
to the home Government. Although most of the settlements 
had become royal colonies by the time of the Revolution, 
their past and their practice tended to make the colonists 
feel that the rights of Englishmen had been brought with 
them across the sea. The revolt against Charles I had left 
its deep impress in America, an impress so strong that Pat- 
rick Henry's appeal to it as a precedent in their relations 
to George III was more than a rhetorical flourish. 

The men and women who came to America were not, as 
a rule, prosperous and conservative. Often they were not 
members of the respected classes. Large numbers emi- 
grated because of religious dissatisfaction or radicalism in 
political beliefs. If there was much unrest in the England of 
the seventeenth century, there was bound to be more in the 
colonies that were established at that time. The inherent 
rights of Englishmen which were fought for in the struggles 
with the Stuarts were carried to the world of the West, where 
a congenial atmosphere free from the restraining effects of an 
older civilization caused those ideas to find a full expression. 
Tendencies toward self-government and democratic ideas 
were simply inevitable. 

Added to this sense of political remoteness and freedom 
was a growing consciousness of strength resulting from suc- 
cessful colonial wars and the passing of the French menace. 
In addition, there was an increasing feeling of kinship in the 
colonies during the eighteenth century. Isolation was slowly 
broken down by the movements of population from one 



THE REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES 121 

group to another or westward to establish another frontier. 
As early as 1643 the New England colonies had banded to- 
gether against Indians and Dutch and French. James II 
made an ill-starred attempt to form all the territory north of 
Pennsylvania into one Dominion of New England under a 
single governor. A little later, in 1690, an intercolonial 
congress had been held at New York following the suggestion 
of Massachusetts in view of the imminent military dangers. 
The numerous wars of the eighteenth century aided much in 
fostering this feeling. Finally, in 1754, as the Seven Years' 
War was about to open, a congress was held at Albany, in 
which all the colonies except the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, 
and New Jersey, were represented. The plan of union pro- 
jected there did not come into operation, but, in spite of its 
failure, it showed that there was a widespread desire for a 
" general union of strength and interest." By 1760 the col- 
onies were conscious of their power and of their common in- 
terests. 

It was surely unfortunate, from the British point of view, 
with such forces as these in operation, that the British Gov- 
ernment should not have been manned with the very best 
sort of leadership. George III, who succeeded to the throne 
in 1760, "gloried in the name of Briton." This feeling, 
however, was in him more a fault than a virtue, from the 
point of view of constitutional development, as he made a 
stubborn effort to revive royal influence in order to be more 
of a king. He was a "consummate politician in the worst 
sense," 1 rejecting good leadership in Parliament that he 
might consolidate his personal power. 

THE APPKOACH OF WAR 

It was under such auspices that a "tightening" policy was 
inaugurated at the close of the Seven Years' War. This con- 
flict had been expensive, the debt having almost doubled, 
and the expenditures having risen to three times their nor- 
mal size within eight years. Colonial evasion of English 
trading regulations, continuing during the time of the war, 

1 John Morley, On Politics and History, p. 190. 



122 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

had aroused the wrath of the British Government. Writs of 
assistance were issued under the name of George III in 1761 
to help the collectors put the laws of trade into execution. 
This action aroused much opposition in Boston, where James 
Otis in that year eloquently stated colonial ideas in speaking 
against the issuance of these writs. In fact, Great Britain 
had to do something, as the colonial customs were producing 
less than two thousand pounds a year, hardly a fourth part 
of the cost of collection. In addition to the writs of assist- 
ance, the mother country sought a remedy for the situation 
by compelling customs officials to do their work in America 
and not by means of deputies. Colonial governors were 
commanded to be more diligent and naval vessels were em- 
powered to seize ships doing an unlawful trade. 

In April, 1764, a new revenue law, known usually as the 
"Sugar Act," came into force. Its purpose is stated in the 
opening paragraphs of the act; it was to renew the Molasses 
Act of 1733, 1 to " defray the expenses of defending, protect- 
ing and securing the said colonies and plantations," to dis- 
allow drawbacks on exports from England and to prevent 
the "clandestine conveyance of goods to and from the said 
colonies and plantations," and to secure and improve the 
trade between "the same and Great Britain." Careful pro- 
visions were made for enforcing the law, and the penalties for 
disobedience were extremely severe. 

In spite of outspoken opposition to this measure by the col- 
onists, a further step was taken in the following year by the 
passage of a Stamp Act toward "further defraying the ex- 
penses of defending, protecting and securing the same." Its 
one hundred and seventeen paragraphs covered every con- 
ceivable form in which a stamp duty might be obtained, from 
ships' papers to playing-cards and dice. What made it more 
disagreeable was the injunction that the money collected 
was to be paid directly into the British exchequer. 

Still greater opposition followed this measure. Various 
colonial assemblies passed resolutions. Riots occurred. 
Stamp masters had to resign. Nine colonies joined in a 

> See p. 107. 



THE REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES 123 

Stamp Act Congress at New York, which drew up a petition 
to the King and a memorial to Parliament. When the day 
for enforcing the Act came, neither stamp masters nor stamps 
were to be found. William Pitt rejoiced that America had 
resisted, and he advised that no money be taken without co- 
lonial assent, at the same time recommending measures that 
would evidence Britain's authority across the seas. Pitt's 
suggestion was followed in 1766; a Declaratory Act was 
passed and the Stamp Act was repealed in the face of deter- 
mined opposition in the House of Lords. The Declaratory 
Act stated that the colonies "have been, are and of right 
ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the im- 
perial crown and parliament of Great Britain." Full power 
of making laws for the colonies was affirmed and the denial of 
this right by colonial assemblies was declared "utterly null 
and void." In fact, political developments in the American 
colonies had already gone so far that it is difficult to conceive 
that a compromise could have been reached even as early as 
1766. 

Another source of dissatisfaction was the Quartering Act 
passed in 1765, which again aroused the opposition of Massa- 
chusetts and New York. The New York Assembly did not 
fully comply with the requirements of the Quartering Act and 
the colony's charter was suspended as a punishment. Added 
to this grievance was a renewal of measures for procuring 
revenue. Townshend, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
was uncontrolled in 1766 on account of the illness of Pitt, pro- 
posed plans for enforcing the existing laws and providing 
revenue. Three Acts were passed in the next year, one for 
establishing customs commissioners, a second for providing 
revenue by the collection of import duties, and a third to 
encourage the "consumption of teas legally imported within 
this kingdom and increasing the exportation of teas to his 
Majesty's plantations in America which are now chiefly fur- 
nished by foreigners in a course of illicit trade." 

Further riot and rebellion resulted. Non-importation 
agreements spread through the various colonies. The Mas- 
sachusetts General Court — that is, the legislature — sent a 



124 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

circular letter to all the colonies urging some common meas- 
ure of redress. Thereupon, the Governor dissolved the 
legislative body, and troops were sent to Boston to assist in 
the enforcement of the law. As a result of the tense feeling, 
a riot occurred in Boston in 1770, in which some citizens were 
killed. Matters became so serious that Lord North, who 
had become Prime Minister in 1770, removed all the duties 
except that on tea. In spite of concessions, committees of 
correspondence were vigilant in keeping colonial feeling and 
cooperation at a high pitch; it was no longer the particular 
duties that offended, but the principle that was being estab- 
lished. In 1775 the tea that came to Boston — it was being 
exported under permission granted to the East India Com- 
pany by Lord North's Regulating Act of 1773 — was pitched 
into the harbor. At Philadelphia and New York the tea was 
not allowed off the vessels and at Charleston it was placed 
in damp cellars to rot. 

Parliament's indignation was great. In 1774 four statutes 
were passed to meet the situation that was now seen to be 
serious indeed. March 31, 1774, the port of Boston was 
closed by an Act that passed both Houses of Parliament 
without a division. A second measure revoked in part the 
Massachusetts charter, while a third provided for a careful 
administration of justice by changing the place of trial from 
Massachusetts, if necessary, as a result of the "present dis- 
ordered state of that province." A more complete Quarter- 
ing Act was made law, which amounted to a temporary 
military government for the province. The Quebec Act, 
passed at the same time, reorganized the government of this 
recently acquired possession. Although the measure did not 
directly affect the thirteen colonies, it was obnoxious to the 
northern colonies, since Quebec was considered to extend 
south to the Ohio and west to the Mississippi. 1 

The American colonies replied by calling a meeting of a 

Continental Congress that sat at Philadelphia in September 

of 1774. Growing unification of feeling was evident. When 

a Second Continental Congress met in 1775, definite prepara- 

1 See pp. 214-17 for a full treatment of this notable act. 



THE REVOLT OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES 125 

tions were made for war. A month before it met, the British 
troops in Boston had fought with the colonists at Lexington 
and Concord. With these skirmishes, war began. Wash- 
ington was made Commander-in-Chief and repaired to Mas- 
sachusetts to take charge of the force gathered to withstand 
the British troops quartered in Boston. 

THE WAR 

It is unnecessary to enter into detail regarding the conflict 
that was concluded by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783. The 
leadership of the British was irresolute and often half- 
hearted. Washington, a host in himself, was assisted by 
men drawn to the cause of those seemingly struggling for lib- 
erty against oppression. Alexander Hamilton from the island 
of Nevis became an enthusiastic aide of Washington, while 
Lafayette and De Kalb from France, Steuben from Ger- 
many, and Kosciuszko from Poland came to give assistance 
to the revolting colonists. The British forces were, in gen- 
eral, confined to the important cities. Boston, New York, 
and Philadelphia were occupied during periods of the war, 
but the country as a whole remained unconquered. 

In 1777 the Revolution entered on a new stage. General 
Burgoyne led an expedition from Canada into the State of 
New York, hoping to cut the communications of the New 
Englanders with the south. He was decisively defeated, 
however, at Saratoga. The French had long hesitated as to 
what they should do in view of the colonial troubles of their 
rivals, but this evidence of American power led them to side 
with the revolting colonists. With this development the con- 
flict took on a larger importance; it became one more of the 
series of Franco-British wars that had begun in 1689. It 
was not long before Spain and Holland joined the enemies of 
Britain, and, to make matters worse still, Prussia, Russia, 
Sweden, and Denmark in 1780 entered into an agreement 
known as the "Armed Neutrality." Britain's problem was 
no longer the chastisement of unruly colonies; the Revolution 
had broadened into a world-war. 

The conflict on the mainland of America continued to be, 



126 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

on the whole, indecisive. Operations in the south by Corn- 
wallis were partially successful until Washington's most ef- 
ficient assistant, General Greene, masterfully confined the 
British to the coast towns. Cornwallis took a position in 
Yorktown, Virginia, near the mouth of the James River in 
the year 1781, where he was promptly besieged by Washing- 
ton and Lafayette. The French fleet under Comte de 
Grasse was fortunately at hand to cooperate in the mili- 
tary movements against Cornwallis. On the 19th of Octo- 
ber, 1781, he surrendered. The American cause had been 
won. 

In other parts of the world Britain's embarrassments were 
acute. The weakness of the British in America is accounted 
for to a considerable degree by the enlarged area of the war 
after 1777. Yet Washington doubted whether Yorktown 
had ended the struggle. He placed his forces in the most 
advantageous positions for defense and awaited the return 
of the French fleet under De Grasse, without whose assist- 
ance he admitted the patriot party was helpless. In Novem- 
ber, 1781, the French captured the West Indian island of St. 
Eustatius, so valuable as a free trading-center. To make mat- 
ters worse for the British, Admiral Kempenfelt was unable 
to intercept the fleet bringing supplies to De Grasse. A fur- 
ther disaster was the loss in February, 1782, of Minorca to 
the French and Spanish. In the same month a more serious 
misfortune came with the capture of the West Indian island 
of St. Christopher by the French. The trend of events was 
unmistakable; the most precious of the British possessions, 
the sugar islands, seemed to be slipping from British hands. 
The Whigs, taking advantage of the military and naval situa- 
tion, gave notice that they would offer a resolution of want 
of confidence in the ministry. Lord North, rather than face 
this, resigned. 

The naval superiority remained for a while longer with 
Britain's enemies. Montserrat and Nevis were captured by 
the French shortly after the fall of St. Christopher, leaving 
but three islands in the West Indies in the possession of the 
British. A great colonial empire was disappearing. Fear 



THE REVOLT OP THE AMERICAN COLONIES 127 

was felt for India, as the Far East would doubtless be the 
next place of attack after the command of the Atlantic was 
wrested from Britain. This untoward succession of events 
was concluded when Admiral Rodney in April met the fleet 
of De Grasse between the islands of Guadeloupe and Marti- 
nique as the French were on their way to join a Spanish fleet 
at Hispaniola. In the greatest naval battle of the time, De 
Grasse was decisively defeated, surrendering his flagship 
when he and another were the only ones left standing upon 
the upper deck. It was the salvation of British sea-power 
and of the British colonial Empire. The naval supremacy, 
held by the French long enough to enable the Americans to 
capture Yorktown and win the Revolution, was soon regained 
by the British, and has been held by them ever since. 

The treaty was finally arranged in 1783. By it independ- 
ence was obtained for the thirteen colonies with the terri- 
tory of the United States extending westward to the Missis- 
sippi and northward to the Great Lakes. The Mississippi 
was to be open to the navigation of both countries. Britain 
granted fishing rights near Newfoundland to the Americans, 
and gave the French additional privileges in these waters. 
In the West Indies, France obtained Tobago from Great 
Britain, but returned the other islands captured in the war. 
In Africa, the French received Senegal and Gor£e, and in 
India they were given back their trading-posts. Spain ob- 
tained Minorca and Florida; Gibraltar, which the Spanish 
had made great efforts to capture, remained with the British. 

The effect of the loss of the British colonies was momen- 
tous. The effort of George III to revive the royal preroga- 
tive was definitely checked. As this conflict was the first 
successful revolt of a colony against the mother country, it 
spread the feeling, so well expressed by Turgot, that the fruit 
when ripe would drop from the tree. Franklin's boast that 
"he would furnish Mr. Gibbon with materials for writing 
the History of the Decline of the British Empire" seemed 
more than a partisan's fling. 1 The loss of the American colo- 
nies marked the low point in the development of the Empire 
1 Sir C. P. Lucas, A History of Canada, p. 204. 



128 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

when the old colonial system was discredited and the new 
had not yet come. 

The causes of the revolt so emphasized the evils of mercan- 
tilism that saner ideals in the treatment of colonies were to 
arise. It shifted British imperial interests to the Far East, 
where India became of increasing importance. Not improb- 
ably it led to the opening of new territories such as Australia 
and New Zealand; if the American colonies had been re- 
tained, a sufficient outlet for British energy and the surplus 
criminal population might still have been found in the West. 

The attitude of Great Britain in the nineteenth century, 
by which the severity of colonial control was gradually re- 
laxed until the great dominions became practically self-gov- 
erning, is the result of a more intelligent treatment of colo- 
nies than we find in the old colonial Empire. It cannot 
be traced to the American Revolution as an immediate re- 
sult, but was only to come with the lapse of time, and the de- 
mand of dominions that had become "ripe," but were not in- 
clined to leave the parent stem. A more immediate effect is 
to be found in the treatment of Ireland, a plantation more 
nearly analogous to the American colonies than any others 
held by England at that time. In 1780, Ireland was granted 
free trade. Two years later, Henry Grattan and his fol- 
lowers demanded that Ireland be granted legislative inde- 
pendence. The Government yielded by an unconditional re- 
peal of the law of the reign of Henry VII, by which Irish bills 
could be revised by the English Privy Council, and by the 
withdrawal of the right of the Parliament in England to legis- 
late for Ireland, an Act that had been on the statute book 
since the reign of George I. 1 

The freedom of the thirteen colonies erected an England 
outside of England's control, and thus increased the influence 

1 This condition of affairs existed for eighteen years. Yet it did not mean 
"home rule" in the full sense, for the Catholic majority in Ireland could neither 
vote nor enter Parliament. The Catholics were enfranchised in 1793. The 
turmoil of that decade — the French Revolution had aroused a desire for po- 
litical independence — brought the end of legislative independence by the Act 
of Union in 1800. Henceforth, for more than a century Ireland was repre- 
sented in the Parliament meeting in London. Catholics won the privilege of 
sitting in Parliament in 1829. 



130 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of English ideals in world-affairs. As the United States has 
come to manhood, the power of British conceptions of law 
and freedom and international justice has been doubled. 
Therefore, the success of the American Revolution was by no 
means a calamity, even to the British Empire. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

There are a number of good accounts of the American Revolution. 
W. E. H. Lecky's chapters on this period in his History of England in the 
Eighteenth Century have been conveniently reprinted in a single volume. 
Sir George Otto Trevelyan's The American Revolution (6 vols., New York, 
1917) is another British account that is eminently fair and readable. See, 
in particular, vol. vi, chapters xx-xxm, for the growing complications for 
Great Britain in 1780 and 1781. Of accounts by American writers men- 
tion should be made of G. E. Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution (New 
York, 1905), and C. H. Van Tyne, The American Revolution (New York, 
1905), in "The American Nation" series. In The Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, J. A. Doyle treats the Revolution from the English point of view. An 
excellent account in brief compass is to be found in Channing's History of 
the United States, vol. m, chapters i-xii, and a more detailed and critical 
treatment, favorable to the Loyalists, in S. G. Fisher, Struggle for American 
Independence (2 vols., New York, 1908). The maritime aspects are fully 
considered in A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea-Power upon History, 1660- 
1783, and the relations of Canada to the revolting colonies find careful 
treatment in Sir Charles Lucas, A History of Canada, 17 68-18 12 (Oxford, 
1909), and A. G. Bradley, The Making of Canada (New York, 1908). For 
the commercial conditions reference may be made to A. M. Schlesinger, 
The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York, 1917). 



CHAPTER IX 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 

The American Revolution was regarded as a calamity to 
Great Britain, resulting as it did in the loss of its best- 
developed colonies. As we have found, this calamity was, in 
part, the result of the monopolistic commercial system that 
had been in vogue for one hundred years. In consequence, 
the whole colonial and commercial system was, for a time, 
discredited. Especially did it seem a waste of time and 
money and men to fight for the retention of colonies that 
were maturing, and therefore preparing to leave the parent 
that had nourished them. 

MERCANTILISM ATTACKED 

Yet, even before 1783, there were Englishmen holding an 
anti-imperial point of view. One of the most interesting ad- 
vocates of this opinion was Josiah Tucker, Dean of Glouces- 
ter. He seems to have been more interested in trade than in 
religion; his bishop complained that he made a trade of his 
religion and a religion of his trade. In 1763, he published a 
tract against " going to war for the sake of trade." At the 
opening of the American Revolution, he wrote a number of 
tracts advocating a voluntary acquiescence in the colonial de- 
sire to be independent. In the year 1781, as the war was 
coming to a close, Tucker published a work, in the form of a 
letter to M. Necker, arguing that the conflict was a mistake 
for all the nations concerned. He contended that the volun- 
tary rejection of empire on Britain's part would be the best 
course to adopt, and that the British should trust solely to 
the cheapness and goodness of manufactures, and the strength 
of their capital. As for military matters, he felt that England 
should prepare simply for home defense. 1 

1 The title of the appeal was Cui Bono t or an Inquiry, what benefits can arise 
either to the English or the Americans, the French, Spaniards or Dutch, from the 
greatest victories or successes in the present War ? (Gloucester, 1781), The paw* 



132 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

A much more powerful opponent of the old colonial system 
and of the entire point of view resulting in the discrimination 
against trade rivals was Adam Smith. It was in 1776 — the 
year of the appearance of the Declaration of Independence — 
that he published his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes 
of the Wealth of Nations. This great work helped materi- 
ally to change the commercial attitude of the British na- 
tion from a strict mercantilism to a belief in freedom of 
trade. The fourth book of this inquiry is principally de- 
voted to an elaborate attack on the commercial system. 
Here Adam Smith revealed the unreasonable character of 
the various restraints of trade, the false channels into which 
it had been turned by artificial stimuli to the upsetting of 
the freedom of commercial intercourse upon which the rela- 
tions of nations should be based. He held that "all the 
European colonies have, without exception, been a cause 
rather of weakness than of strength to their respective 
mother countries." x This was owing to the fact that the 
commercial system, by its emphasis on exclusive trade be- 
tween the colonies and the homeland, tended to render the 
colonies less abundant in surplus produce than they other- 
wise would be. 

He further attacked the idea, prevalent at the time, that a 
great empire should be founded "for the sole purpose of rais- 
ing up a people of customers. ' ' This pro j ec t he felt to be alto- 
gether unfit even for a nation of shopkeepers. To this false 
conception Adam Smith laid the blame for the expensive 
wars that Great Britain had been waging and the one it 
was entering on in 1776. " The latest war [the Seven Years' 
War] was altogether a colony trouble, and the whole expense 
of it in whatever part of the world it may have been laid out, 

phlet was in the press as the news of Yorktown was received in England. Tuck- 
er's postscript is characteristic: "This moment an account has arrived that the 
brave Cornwallis with his little army has been obliged to submit to the united 
forces of superior numbers. I am at a loss what to say upon this occasion — to 
congratulate my country on being defeated is contrary to that decency which 
is due to the public. And yet if this defeat should terminate in a total separa- 
tion from America, it would be one of the happiest events that has ever hap- 
pened to Great Britain." 

* The Wealth of Nations (New York, 1878), p. 460. 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 133 

whether in Germany or the East Indies, ought justly to be 
stated on the account of the colonies. . . . The Spanish War, 
which began in 1739, was principally a colony quarrel. 
... Its pretended purpose was to encourage the manufac- 
tures and to increase the commerce of Great Britain. But 
its real effect has been to raise the rate of mercantile profit." 
His conclusion was : " Great Britain derives nothing but loss 
from the dominion which she has assumed over her colo- 
nies." l 

Adam Smith did not go to the extreme position of Dean 
Tucker, however, and advocate that Great Britain volunta- 
rily give up all its authority over its colonies. "The most 
visionary enthusiast would scarce be capable of proposing 
such a measure with any serious hope at least of its ever 
being adopted. If it was adopted, however, Great Britain 
would not only be freed from the whole annual expense of the 
peace establishment of the colonies, but might settle with 
them such a treaty of commerce as would effectually secure 
to her a free trade, more advantageous to the great body of 
this people, though less so to the merchants than the mo- 
nopoly which she at present enjoys." 2 He does go to the 
point of advocating the relaxing of the laws of trade, not only 
with the colonies, but with other nations as well. 

The author of this remarkable work has many hard things 
to say of the "mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of mer- 
chants and manufacturers." "In every country it must be 
and always is the interest of the great body of the people to 
buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest." 
From this point of view a neighboring nation's wealth is ad- 
vantageous in trade though dangerous in war. "A nation 
that would enrich itself by foreign trade, is certainly most 
likely to do so when its neighbors are all rich, industrious, and 
commercial nations." 3 He thus became, in this powerful at- 
tack on the old system, the great and successful advocate of 
an "open and free commerce." 

The break-down of mercantilism was brought about to a 

i The Wealth of Nations (New York, 1878), p. 480. 
* Ibid., p. 481. » Ibid., p. 378. 



134 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

considerable extent by this epoch-making book. The Tories 
accepted its arguments easily, as they were not in favor of the 
"monopolizing manufacturers." The Whigs cared for the 
colonies only in so far as they added to the wealth of the 
mother country. Adam Smith had an important disciple in 
the younger Pitt, who became the Prime Minister of Great 
Britain at the close of the American Revolution. Although 
a freer trade was opened with France shortly before the 
French Revolution, the monopolistic attitude toward the 
colonies did not appreciably relax, and the newly independ- 
ent United States was accorded but the necessary privileges 
to secure to the British the greater part of its trade. 

Strangely enough, the American war, in which France, 
Spain, and Holland were involved as well, did not seem to af- 
fect British trade seriously. Adam Smith, himself, pointed 
out this fact for 1776. Although Great Britain lost many 
possessions in 1783, that nation remained supreme on the 
sea, and British commercial growth continued at a faster 
pace than ever. The trade of the United States was re- 
tained in spite of the efforts of France and Holland to ac- 
quire it, largely because of the superior British mercantile 
marine. In fact, those two nations lost more than they 
gained in the conflict. So far as they were concerned, Dean 
Tucker and Adam Smith seemed to be right. 

In 1793 Jeremy Bentham wrote an interesting pamphlet 
entitled Emancipate your Colonies! It was addressed to the 
National Convention of France, but drew its illustrations of 
the value of emancipation from the experience of Great Brit- 
ain. After arguing that trade is the child of capital and that 
a monopoly only keeps up prices, he refers to the youthful 
United States: "Will you believe experience? Turn to the 
United States. Before the separation Britain had a monop- 
oly of their trade; upon the separation, of course, she lost it. 
How much less of their trade has Britain now than then? On 
the contrary, it is much greater. . . . Hear a paradox — it is 
a true one. Give up your colonies, they are yours. Keep 
them, they are ours." One reason given by Bentham in 
urging the French to emancipate their colonies was that their 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 135 

example might lead the British to do the same: "By setting 
an example, you may open our eyes and force us to follow 
it." 1 

This remarkable vitality of Great Britain, by which it 
apparently came out of a disastrous war stronger than ever, 
is to be found in the solid basis of its material prosperity 
during these years. While these external events were occur- 
ring — events which often occupy exclusively the pages of 
British histories of this period — a wonderful change was tak- 
ing place in British manufactures and trade. It was not so 
spectacular a movement as the military conflicts of the Amer- 
ican Revolution and of the Napoleonic period. The changes 
it wrought, however, were so sudden and momentous that 
it has come to be known as the "Industrial Revolution." 

Pitt, in 1792, made an address on the public finances, in 
which he emphasized the vast increase that had come in 
commerce and industry. The reason that he gave for this 
unprecedented progress was the "improvement that has been 
made in the mode of carrying on almost every branch of man- 
ufacturing and the degree to which labor has been abridged 
by the invention and application of machinery." Great 
Britain was indeed becoming the workshop of the world 
during the last half of the eighteenth century. This came 
as the result of the extraordinary development of the hard- 
ware and textile trades in conjunction with maritime suprem- 
acy and the growing freedom of commercial intercourse. A 
well-known writer on the subject of the industry of Great 
Britain has stated the significance of the movement in the 
following way: "Nothing has done more to make England 
what she at present is — whether for better or worse — than 
this sudden and silent Industrial Revolution, for it increased 
her wealth tenfold and gave her half a century's start in front 
of the other nations of Europe." 2 The wealth and resources 
of Great Britain produced an energy exhaustless in its ap- 
plications, surviving the enervating Napoleonic period and 
furnishing the adequate foundation for forces that were to 

1 The Works of Jeremy Beniham (Edinburgh, 1843), iv, 413-16. 
8 Gibbins, Industry in England, p. 341, " 



136 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

lead to an even greater expansion of the Empire than the 
eighteenth century had witnessed. 

THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY 

The Industrial Revolution was the result of a series of re- 
markable inventions applied especially to the textile trades 
and to improvements in the utilization of power for manu- 
facturing, mining, communication, and transportation. The 
period during which this revolution was bringing in a new 
world, 1770 to 1825, included two great political revolutions, 
the American and the French. The series of inventions that 
so changed industry was the product of British ingenuity, 
save that of the cotton gin, which was invented by an Amer- 
ican, Eli Whitney. Great Britain, therefore, had the full 
advantage of a long lead over the other nations, as every 
effort was made to prevent other nations from taking advan- 
tage of these inventions. It was not fortuitous, however, 
that these inventions were largely British. The formation of 
capital in England had been fostered by the foundation of the 
Bank of England during the reign of William and Mary. 
Besides, Britain's maritime power was secure and its markets 
were unlimited and accessible. Expensive improvements 
under such conditions could well be risked. Moreover, the 
Royal Society offered liberal prizes for needed improvements, 
and the inventions appeared with a responsiveness that has 
something almost mysterious about it. 

It is very significant that the inventions dealt especially 
with the manufacture of cloth, particularly from cotton. 
As cotton could not be grown in the British Isles, the in- 
creasing usefulness of the plant gave it a world-role in the 
expanding industrial movement and helped appreciably to 
enlarge the British commercial outlook. The conditions in 
the cloth manufacture that were so fundamentally changed 
by these mechanical improvements are known under the 
name of the " domestic system." Before these epoch-mak- 
ing changes took place, the workmen themselves often 
bought the raw wool they used and went through the whole 
process of converting it into cloth. Naturally the work was 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 137 

done very slowly. The home was the workshop and the 
family helped in the various processes with which the artisan 
was concerned. The women did the spinning and the man, 
and his assistants, the weaving. If not employed by some 
merchant, the master would dispose of his own products at 
the market or fair. 

The cotton manufacture included a definite number of 
processes. In the first place, the raw wool or cotton had to 
be carded by a rough sort of comb, in order to straighten the 
fibers for use. Thereupon the fibers were drawn out and 
twisted into thread or yarn for weaving by means of the 
spinning-wheel. The next step was to prepare cloth for the 
tailor by the hand-loom. This consisted of a frame on which 
the threads forming the warp were stretched, and between 
these threads others were inserted by means of a shuttle, 
thrown through the alternate threads by the weaver. 

The first improvement to be made in the cloth manufac- 
ture was in the weaving. In 1733 John Kay, of Bury in 
Lancashire, took out a patent for a fly shuttle, by which the 
shuttle was rapidly thrown from side to side through the warp 
by means of a shuttle-driver. This improvement, which 
more than doubled the production of one weaver's work, 
came into general use about 1760. It naturally increased 
the demand for yarn, a demand that could not be met by 
hand-labor. 

The spinning process was revolutionized by the work of 
three inventors, James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright, and 
Samuel Crompton. The need for a more rapid means of 
spinning was met first by James Hargreaves' invention of the 
spinning- jenny about 1764. To a simple wooden frame he 
attached eight spindles turned by a wheel; they provided 
eight threads at one time. By the close of the American 
Revolution, the number of spindles on one jenny had in- 
creased from eight to eighty, and over twenty thousand of 
these machines were in use in England in that year. They 
were doing the work that would have demanded the exclusive 
labor of a million and a half spinners twenty years before. 

Richard Arkwright invented a process of spinning by 



138 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

means of rollers; they were in pairs that revolved at different 
rates of speed and thus drew out the fibers. Arkwright used 
great secrecy in perfecting this process, and the mystified 
neighbors declared they heard strange noises proceed from 
his house, noises of a humming nature as if the devil were 
tuning up his bagpipes. At first horses were used for power, 
but to lessen the expense, Arkwright utilized water instead. 
Hence the machine was called the water-frame. The threads 
produced by the water-frame were of particularly good qual- 
ity, and came to be used as warp instead of linen. 

In 1779 Samuel Crompton, of Bolton in Lancashire, made 
a further improvement in the spinning process, by combining 
the virtues of the two previous inventions into what came to 
be known as the "mule." By 1811 more than four and a 
half million spindles worked by " mules" were in use in Eng- 
land. 

Soon the weaving process was greatly accelerated by the 
invention of the power-loom. Dr. Edmund Cartwright, of 
Kent, obtained the patent for his new machine in 1785. 
Hand-loom weaving was thus largely superseded. Further 
improvements were made, so that by the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the loom could be worked without inter- 
mission and a child of fourteen or fifteen years of age could 
operate this machine that wove several times as much cloth 
as the best hand-weaver. 

Cotton had been cleaned by hand until Eli Whitney, an 
American, invented the cotton-gin in the last decade of the 
eighteenth century. Formerly the cleaning of cotton had 
been so slow that little cotton could be used in the manufac- 
ture of cloth. 

To these various inventions, which appeared almost si- 
multaneously, might be added others hardly less important. 
It is sufficient to say that the effect of the introduction of 
these various mechanical assistants in the textile industry was 
amazingly to increase the production of cloth, especially cot- 
ton cloth, in England. Besides, it is most important to real- 
ize that these machines improved instead of cheapened the 
quality of the finished product. 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 139 



THE STEAM ENGINE 

Just as significant for England's colonial and commercial 
expansion were the improvements made at this time in power 
with its numerous practical applications. As indicated above, 
Arkwright used horses and later water to operate his ma- 
chines. Yet water power imposed serious limitations on in- 
dustry; rivers with a sufficient fall were needed, but often 
they were not to be found in convenient locations. These 
difficulties were overcome by the invention of the steam en- 
gine. It grew out of a crude invention for pumping con- 
trived by Newcomen early in the century. From 1725 until 
1770, Newcomen's engine was in common use in England. 
James Watt was repairing, in 1763, a Newcomen engine for 
the University of Glasgow. He was struck by its inefficiency 
and made a number of changes that produced an engine so 
greatly superior that it could be used for other purposes than 
pumping. In 1785 Watt's engine was introduced into the 
cotton factories, where its enormous advantages over water 
power were soon evident. Largely as a result of this new 
form of power, the cotton trade trebled in fifteen years. 

The intimate relationship of the various manufacturing 
processes has been illustrated by the effect of the foregoing 
inventions. Further results were soon forthcoming. Ma- 
chines demanded iron and iron that was of good quality. 
The iron trade, in turn, was dependent on fuel. Heretofore, 
wood had been used for smelting purposes, but the forests 
were so seriously affected that legislative prohibitions had 
limited the use of wood. Watt's new engine solved the diffi- 
culty by stimulating the production of coal, for by it mines 
were not only cleared of water, but shafts were sunk, and 
coal was brought from the pits. The English coal-fields be- 
came at once important. In consequence, the iron industry 
took on new life now that fuel for smelting was in greater 
abundance. In 1760, a blast furnace was invented which used 
coal in place of wood. Improvements appeared, also, in the 
mode of working malleable iron and making wrought iron. 
In 1784, the puddling forge was first used. As a result of 



140 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

these various inventions, the output of iron ore at the close 
of the American Revolution had increased fourfold over the 
production of 1750. 

A marked effect was produced on industry and commerce 
by the application of steam and improved machinery to com- 
munication both on land and water. Great improvements 
in roads were made at the time of the Industrial Revolution 
by such well-known roadmakers as Metcalfe, Telford, and 
Macadam. Carriage by water was becoming more general 
at this time by the development of the canal system. Brind- 
ley in 1758 completed the famous Bridgewater Canal, con- 
necting the Duke of Bridgewater's colliery at Worsley with 
Manchester. In 1777 a canal ninety-six miles long was 
built between the Trent and the Mersey. Hull and Liver- 
pool, Liverpool and Bristol, London and Oxford, were con- 
nected by canals in the latter part of the century. It was not 
long before these improvements were superseded by the ap- 
plication of the steam engine to transportation. 

The application of steam power to railways and to ocean 
vessels was made toward the end of this period. It has done 
probably as much as the great inventions to revolutionize 
commerce. Richard Trevithick constructed a locomotive in 
1801, but this predecessor of the modern automobile was 
found too expensive to operate. He next turned to the use of 
rails for the wheels, and in 1804 his railway locomotive made 
its first trip on a prepared track. The name of George Ste- 
phenson is better known, however, in the development of the 
railway. His " traveling engine" of 1814 was used between 
a colliery and a shipping port nine miles away. The Stock- 
ton and Darlington Railway operated a Stephenson engine 
in 1822. It was seven years later that his Rocket won against 
its rivals in trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 
His engine, weighing a little over four tons, ran twenty-nine 
miles an hour. 

The effect of steam on navigation has been just as re- 
markable. The first practical steamship was the tug Char- 
lotte Dundas, which was used in 1802 in the Forth and Clyde 
Canal. It was propelled by a Watt engine. The Comet, built 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 141 

by Henry Bell and launched on the Clyde in the year 1812, 
was the first steam passenger vessel in Great Britain. In 
the meantime, Robert Fulton, who seems to have received 
assistance from Bell, built the Clermont in New York. This 
boat, equipped with an engine made by Watt, successfully 
steamed up the Hudson to Albany, one hundred and forty- 
five miles away. 

From this time the application of steam engines to navi- 
gation went on rapidly. The first steamship to cross the 
Atlantic was the Savannah, an American vessel, which ac- 
complished the journey in 1825 in twenty-six days. The 
famous Great Western began to make regular passages in 1838. 
Two years later Sir Samuel Cunard established his well- 
known line of Atlantic steamships. In 1850 the Collins line 
was organized as its American rival, but the latter's success 
was shortlived, owing to a succession of marine disasters. 
The keen competition of these lines, however, brought the 
time for the transatlantic journey to nine days by the year 
1854. In that year, Great Britain had nearly two hundred 
thousand tons of shipping under steam power. When the 
War of 1914 opened, it had reached the tremendous aggre- 
gate of nineteen million tons. 

Such were some of the amazing results of this period of in- 
ventions. The list could be extended almost indefinitely. 
The first steam printing-press was installed by the London 
Times in 1814. This particular application of steam meant 
cheaper and more widely diffused printed materials, and thus 
better education for the poor, and a greater interest in the 
world beyond one's own small community. The possibilities 
for an enlarged democracy are in a real way to be connected 
with the work of James Watt and his successors. A further 
means of communication was found in 1832 with the inven- 
tion of the telegraph. With this invention a new source of 
power, electricity, came into use. It was much later that 
the telephone (1876) and the wireless (1895) assisted still 
further in binding man to man and nation to nation. 

The improvements mentioned in the last paragraph carry 
us beyond the first stage of the Industrial Revolution. They 



142 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

serve, however, to illustrate the continuity of the great move- 
ment that took so sudden a start back in 1760. With the use 
of electricity for the locomotive, the ocean vessel, the air- 
ship, the street-car, the truck, and the automobile, the age of 
steam has reached its limit. As a result of this constantly 
accelerating development we are as far from the days of the 
Mayflower in the use of our tools as the Pilgrim ship was be- 
yond the days of the Roman trireme. 

THE AFTERMATH OF REVOLUTION 

What did this development mean for the British Empire? 
So extensive have been its influences that the division be- 
tween the old and the new colonial Empires is to be marked 
not only by the American Revolution, but also by the revo- 
lutionary change taking place at this time in industry. 

For one thing the wealth of Great Britain was marvelously 
increased. There was no immediate corresponding develop- 
ment on the continent of Europe, for the inventions were by 
Englishmen or Americans and were first applied success- 
fully and generally in Great Britain and in the United States. 
One evidence of the growth in Britain's wealth is found in 
the increase of the revenue. At the opening of the Seven 
Years' War, it was but five million pounds and had not dou- 
bled since the opening of the century; by the year 1830, the 
revenue was ten times its size at the beginning of the In- 
dustrial Revolution. The increase in the important indus- 
tries illustrates even more vividly the growth of the nation's 
wealth. Seventeen thousand tons of pig iron were manufac- 
tured in England in 1740; by 1830, production had been in- 
creased forty-fold. 

The growth of the textile industries is very significant. 
The woolen manufactured annually in the middle of the 
eighteenth century was worth four million pounds; by 1833, 
it had doubled, in spite of difficulties found in obtaining 
wool. 1 The greatest increase came in the cotton manufac- 

1 By 1800, sheep farming had begun in Australia; its marvelous development 
in Australia and New Zealand was of prime importance to English manufac^ 
turers. See pp, 242 ff., 256, 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 143 

tures. Previous to Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin in 
1792, the supply of cotton for British manufacturers was al- 
most wholly from the British and French West Indian is- 
lands. Whitney's gin greatly speeded the production of raw 
cotton, especially in the United States. In 1750 there were 
less than three million pounds imported by England from all 
sources; in 1792, the amount had increased eleven times, and 
by 1830, ninety times. Since 1760 the cotton manufactures 
of Great Britain have enlarged over six hundred times, and 
that nation is still ahead of every competitor in this impor- 
tant branch of industry. 

The extraordinary increase in wealth produced the concen- 
tration of capital. The factory system led to the employ- 
ment of large numbers of people in the industrial centers by 
the relatively few capitalists who controlled the industries. 
The capitalist appeared with alarming rapidity. His great 
wealth gave him weight in politics, and this, in turn, led to an 
increasing influence of capital on the country's foreign and 
colonial policy. With the parliamentary reform of 1832, the 
rich bourgeoisie began to shape British political tendencies 
with greater force than before. It is well to note, in view 
of this result of the Industrial Revolution, that the connec- 
tion of the Empire with trading interests is more prominent 
than ever after the period of the great inventions. 

As more goods were produced than could be used at home, 
ocean transportation was an absolute necessity for the de- 
velopment of the new industry. In addition, raw materials 
were needed from beyond the seas. Steam navigation an- 
swered this need while the wealth of the country lessened 
the burden imposed by the great fleets which continued to 
give Britain the mastery of the sea. At the same time the 
export and import trade made British sea-power more im- 
portant than ever to its life. From 1750 to 1830 exports 
and imports increased fivefold; in 1910 they totaled seventy 
times their aggregate at the opening of the Industrial Revo- 
lution. This is one of the most amazing phenomena of mod- 
ern British life, for in the same period of time previous to 
1750, Britain's exports and imports had increased but four- 
fold. 



144 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

One important result of this rapid industrial advance is to 
be seen in the effect it had on the population. In the first 
half of the nineteenth century, England's population in- 
creased seventy per cent. The easier production of clothing 
and food, as a result of the numerous mechanical improve- 
ments for factories and agriculture, certainly accounts in 
part for this advance. There was a baneful effect of the 
movement as well, for it brought hardships to large sections 
of the population in England. The rapid changes in indus- 
trial life resulted in great unsettlement, as there was a strong 
movement to the cities and the factory centers. Poorer liv- 
ing conditions and new standards imposed by the callous 
capitalists made the workers' conditions less pleasant and 
healthy. Women and children were subjected to inhuman 
treatment; unemployment and "hard times" brought dis- 
satisfaction. This led to a considerable emigration from the 
mother country, and helps to account for the rapid peopling 
of the colonies in the nineteenth century. During every 
decade of the nineteenth century several hundred thousand 
inhabitants of Great Britain went to the colonies, there to 
start new Britains and bind them to the mother country 
across the seas. 

The effect of the improved means of communication on the 
growth of the Empire will be evident without elaborate ex- 
planation. One of the great difficulties with the old Empire 
had been the matter of distance. England had difficulty in 
transporting and caring for a few thousand troops in America 
during the American Revolution. What a contrast there is in 
the recent transportation of two million men and their sup- 
plies from the United States to the battle-fields of France 
during the last years of the World War! What the railway 
and telegraph did for the various parts of the British Isles, 
steamships and cables have done for the Empire. A new 
sense of national unity came with greater surety and speed in 
communication. The new Empire has grown in a surer way, 
because to the "mystic cords" of memory and loyalty are 
added the actual mechanical bonds of fast steamships, a 
great navy, transoceanic cables, and wireless communication. 



THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 145 

We have found that the Industrial Revolution covered, 
roughly speaking, the years between 1770 and 1825. Dur- 
ing this time the American Revolution took place, but it pro- 
duced no appreciable effect on the industrial life of Great 
Britain because of the changes then taking place in the do- 
mestic system of manufacture. A third revolution, the great 
political and social upheaval that began in France in 1789 
and was continued by the wars of Napoleon until 1815, is also 
included in the years of the industrial change in England. It 
was of importance in its effect on the British Empire; of es- 
pecial interest is the way by which the Britain which had 
been strengthened by the new economic resources was able 
to withstand Napoleon, who strained every effort to become 
master of the Europe of his day. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The Industrial Revolution is treated in the works referred to in the 
Bibliographical Note for chapter n. Gilbert Slater, The Making of Mod- 
em England (Boston, 1915), is written from the social and economic point 
of view. The volume contains full annotated bibliographies on the varied 
phases of English nineteenth-century life. For the development of the 
new system see J. A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism; A 
Study of Machine Production (rev. ed., New York, 1913.) 



CHAPTER X 
THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 

The American Revolution ended in 1783 with the loss to 
Great Britain of an important part of its Empire. This was 
the consequence, to an extent, of the aimless and inefficient 
leadership that characterized the British Government during 
the early years of the reign of George III. A hopeful change 
occurred when the younger Pitt came to office in 1783. The 
son was to prove as remarkable a leader in time of crisis as his 
father had been in a similar situation forty years earlier. 
Pitt was but twenty-four years of age when he obtained the 
highest office in British public life, a significant fact, as his 
youth contributed energy and optimism at a time when they 
were sorely needed. In truth, Great Britain might well have 
been despondent over the outcome of its fifth great struggle 
with France. His youth accounts, also, for his energy in in- 
troducing reform ideas into the administration and in repair- 
ing " the evils arising out of the old order of things." He was 
a sympathetic student of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. 
Above all he had high principles and an enthusiastic belief in 
Britain's future. Fortunately for him, the Industrial Revo- 
lution was already amassing wealth in the country, and thus 
preparing the nation to furnish Pitt with the sinews of war so 
needed in the approaching troubles. 

A WORLD WAR 

Six years after the thirteen colonies left the Empire, the 
great French Revolution began. In some ways it was the 
British Empire's severest test. This protracted struggle 
with France and Napoleon, which lasted with but few inter- 
missions from 1793 to 1815, was the last in the series of wars 
we have been considering. From 1689 to the downfall of Na- 
poleon, Great Britain and France were enemies. Moreover, 
the enmity was more than European; it was a world-struggle. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 147 

This last conflict for commercial and maritime supremacy 
between these two dominant nations — the sixth act of a 
world-drama — resulted in an unqualified victory for the 
British Empire. The British naval and industrial supremacy 
were the effective weapons used in the struggle with France. 
So signal was the victory that a new Empire was made pos- 
sible. 

In consequence, this period of strife is important in a sur- 
vey of the Empire and its growth. To-day's world-girdling 
dominion received its sanctions in the strain of a world war. 
A brief account of the struggle needs to be given that the na- 
ture of British strength may be seen. In addition, significant 
operations were taking place in various parts of its oversea 
possessions, former conquests were being consolidated, and 
strategic points added to the fabric of the imperial structure. 
They make the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Period note- 
worthy in our study. 

When the Estates General of France was changed in 1789 
into the Constituent Assembly for the purpose of reforming 
the government and finances of France, many Englishmen 
were warmly in favor of the movement. But by 1790 the 
radicalism of the French lower classes was becoming so 
strong, and extreme measures were already so much in evi- 
dence, that conservative Englishmen began to doubt the 
value of the Revolution. Edmund Burke took a strong 
stand against the movement in his famous Reflections pub- 
lished in that year, and his prognostications seemed justi- 
fied when the Reign of Terror developed in France. Pitt, the 
Prime Minister, had been favorable to the movement at the 
outset, but he gradually was led to a more hostile position. 
When French troops threatened to overrun the Netherlands 
in the latter part of 1792, Holland appealed to Great Britain 
for help; assistance was promised if the need should arise. An 
additional grievance appeared when the French opened the 
Scheldt in defiance of treaties guaranteed by Great Britain. 1 

1 This river, with its outlet in Holland, flowed past the Belgian cities of 
Ghent and Antwerp. The Scheldt had been closed to navigation as far back as 
1648. Just before the Revolution, Joseph II had wished it opened so as to 



148 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Moreover, republicanism was contagious. The French were 
so enthusiastic as even to call men of like feeling in other coun- 
tries to follow their lead, and throw off the yoke of kings and 
tyrants. The tension became so severe early in 1793 that 
the French minister was ordered out of England. In Febru- 
ary of that year, France declared war on Great Britain and 
Holland. 

It was during 1793 and 1794 that the worst of Revolution- 
ary excesses found expression in the Reign of Terror. 
Though the weak and inefficient government of the Direc- 
tory succeeded the terribly effective days of Terror, Britain 
and its allies accomplished little in spite of their numerical 
strength. The complete defeat of Austria in Italy by the 
young General Bonaparte in 1797 brought a temporary ces- 
sation to hostilities. It was soon ended, however, by his ex- 
pedition to Egypt in 1798. In the next year he returned as a 
popular hero to organize the French Republic as a consular 
government with himself as the First Consul. A military 
genius of the first order, possessed with unlimited ambition 
and controlled by no scruples whatever, became the ex- 
ponent of revolution. 

A second coalition against Bonaparte was formed in 1799. 
Again his unexampled ability brought his continental ene- 
mies to defeat. Two years later the coalition was broken up, 
and in 1802 Great Britain and France signed the Peace of 
Amiens. It was but a truce, for within thirteen months the 
two nations were again at war. In 1804 Bonaparte became 
hereditary Emperor of the French. During the next ten 
years he endeavored to build a secure empire in Europe on 
the basis of military power. For a time he continued to win 
victory after victory, his armies ranging from Spain and 
Portugal to Moscow and Berlin. About 1811, when the Cor- 
sican adventurer was at the height of his power, all of Eu- 
rope was in his Empire, under his control, or allied with him 

serve as an outlet for the commerce of the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium). 
Now that the French controlled Belgium, it seemed more necessary than ever 
to keep Antwerp from direct communication with the sea. France was a great 
maritime power, and, with Antwerp as a base for its fleet, the position of Eng- 
land would be seriously endangered. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 149 

by compulsion, with the exception of Turkey, Russia, Swe- 
den, Portugal, and Great Britain. 

Britain remained throughout all this long period Bona- 
parte's one bitter, implacable, unconquerable enemy; wealth 
and sea-power finally wore down his military brilliancy. 
And when Bonaparte's mistreatment of the various peoples 
subject to his rule roused in them the spirit of national 
revolt, he succumbed. Napoleon, after being driven back 
to France, made a last effort to recover his position in the 
Hundred Days of 1815. He was defeated at Waterloo, and 
the lonely island of St. Helena — a possession of the Eng- 
lish East India Company — became the home of one who had 
for a time held Europe as in the hollow of his hand. 

What is the place of this struggle in the building of Brit- 
ain's Empire? 

For one thing, it demonstrated beyond a doubt the su- 
premacy of Britain on the sea and the decisive part that sea- 
power was to play in international strife. Even in the days 
before the establishment of Napoleon's power, the lesson had 
come home with telling force. Admiral Howe, in 1794, had 
tried to intercept a supply of food coming from the United 
States to France. Although the convoy was not captured, 
he won a great victory on the " Glorious First of June" over 
the Brest fleet. In 1797 the French planned to invade Eng- 
land with the assistance of the Spanish and Dutch fleets. 
The danger was averted by the defeat of the Spanish off 
Cape St. Vincent in that year by a British fleet that was in- 
ferior in size. It was in this battle that Commodore Horatio 
Nelson won the title of Admiral by his daring attack on the 
vanguard of the Spanish line. In the same year Admiral 
Duncan defeated the Dutch fleet off Camperdown. 

Sea-power was decisive again when Napoleon invaded 
Egypt in 1798. He managed to reach Egypt with his army, 
but Nelson completely destroyed the French fleet in Aboukir 
Bay. This famous Battle of the Nile established British 
supremacy in the Mediterranean, and limited Bonaparte's 
efforts to unsupported expeditions in Egypt and Syria, 
which largely failed in their purposes. Yet in the seductive 



150 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

land of the Nile he dreamed of a new empire that would 
rival that of Alexander the Great. Marmont has preserved 
for us his grandiloquent schemes: "Egypt was once a power- 
ful kingdom. What a point of vantage this would be in of- 
fensive warfare against the English! We are perhaps des- 
tined to change the fact of the Orient. This is the hour when 
characters of a superior order should show themselves." But 
the loss of the navy prevented the working out of his plans. 
Leaving the remnants of his army in Egypt, he eluded the 
British vessels in 1799 and returned to France to take a more 
direct hand in the government. 

When war began in 1803, after the short truce following 
the Peace of Amiens, British naval supremacy was to be 
more severely tested. Napoleon made every effort to de- 
feat his island opponent. Elaborate plans were prepared for 
an invasion of Britain. An army was gathered at Boulogne; 
flat-bottomed boats in large numbers were prepared for the 
transportation of troops; Spain was dragged into the con- 
test to furnish additional defense for the invading army. 
This master of land warfare did not realize the way that 
British skill, energy, and familiarity with the sea, especially 
in those days of sailing vessels, were continually upsetting 
his best-laid plans. The French Emperor's hope of success- 
ful maritime warfare was definitely destroyed in 1805, when 
Nelson met the combined fleets of France and Spain off 
Trafalgar, near the western entrance to the Strait of Gibral- 
tar. Nelson had twenty-seven ships, his opponent thirty- 
three. After a terrible contest in which Nelson lost his life, 
the British won a great victory, having sunk or captured 
three fourths of the vessels of the French and Spanish fleet. 
Britain, "compassed by the inviolate sea," had been saved 
from Napoleonic attack. 

The effect of Trafalgar was momentous. Napoleon there- 
after was forced to confine his operations to the Continent. 
He had planned, in case his major campaign against Eng- 
land should prove indecisive, to attack India, for the Em- 
peror was possessed with the idea that Britain's wealth was 
in its Indian Empire. With the overwhelming defeat of 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 151 

Trafalgar he had to give up all hope of making the conflict a 
colonial struggle. In addition, as a result of this disaster in 
1805, he was compelled to abandon his plans of reviving the 
French colonial Empire. There was left but one other way 
of attacking Great Britain. The French Emperor now 
hoped to destroy his opponent by excluding British com- 
merce from the Continent. But to do this he must conquer 
or subordinate all of Europe. Britain replied to this at- 
tack by subsidizing its continental allies — as the elder Pitt 
had done in the Seven Years' War — and by carrying a 
stubborn opposition to fields where Napoleon was most at 
home. 

THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 

The next phase of the duel, therefore, is the great com- 
mercial struggle between the two Empires. Bonaparte at- 
tempted to establish a " Continental System" for excluding 
British goods from Europe. As the Continent was England's 
chief market, Napoleon was convinced that the prohibition 
of this traffic would cripple his opponent and at the same 
time build up the resources of France. The Emperor was 
unable fully to appreciate the extensiveness of British indus- 
trial and commercial growth or the effect of the continental 
war on his island-enemy. Great Britain's wealth of re- 
source had been augmented so greatly by the inventions of 
Arkwright, Hargreaves, Crompton, and Watt that the at- 
tack of Napoleon was ineffectual. It was not only the de- 
velopment of the Industrial Revolution before the war 
that strengthened England; the world-conflict itself tended 
startlingly to accelerate the movement. The demands of a 
fighting nation increased the industrial output, and this de- 
mand was the more easily met as Britain more and more 
monopolized ocean commerce. With the progress of the war 
the harbors of Great Britain received a larger and ever larger 
percentage of the products of non-European countries, es- 
pecially tropical products. This flow of raw materials di- 
rectly favored an industrial revolution in which a tropical 
plant such as cotton played so important a role. The output 



152 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

and the cost of cotton goods were such that the restrictions 
of a continental system were largely ineffectual. 

From 1806 to the disastrous campaign in Russia six years 
later, the struggle went on. The task was a difficult one for 
Napoleon, since it meant constant vigilance along a great 
stretch of irregular coast. He was led inevitably to trample 
upon the peoples of the nations he brought into his ' ' System ' ' ; 
by restricting their supplies of goods from the outside he intro- 
duced discomfort and want, and engendered ill feeling by the 
military occupation of these subordinate states. The out- 
come was a foregone conclusion, in spite of the fact that the 
deluded Emperor believed he could " conquer the sea by the 
land." 

The British had issued an Order in Council in 1806, putting 
under blockade the coast of the Continent from Brest to 
the Elbe. This order gave provocation to Napoleon, who re- 
taliated with the Berlin Decree in the same year. This fa- 
mous document declared a blockade of the British Isles by a 
government without a navy. It decreed that all commerce 
by France or its dependents with Great Britain was for- 
bidden and that British goods were subject to capture. The 
British replied by an Order in Council early in 1807 intended 
to stop the coastwise trade in Europe. The measure was 
hard on neutrals, the Americans in particular, but in the 
death-grapple of these two Empires neutrals mattered little. 
Napoleon also directed his plans against neutrals. In July 
of 1807 he notified both Portugal and Denmark that they 
must choose France or Great Britain. In November Great 
Britain went still further by the issuance of three more Orders 
in Council, by which a blockade was declared for all ports of 
France and French colonies and, in addition, those of nations 
allied to France. Ships importing to the Continent must 
first stop at a British port and there pay charges amounting 
practically to an import duty. The same process was to be 
observed on the return voyage. The commerce of the Conti- 
nent thus paid toll both going and coming, and Great Britain 
was made the staple for world-trade. 

This attempt to make Britain the center of the world's 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 153 

commerce found Napoleon in Italy. In December he retal- 
iated with the Milan Decree. All ships submitting to search 
by the British became " denationalized" and were regarded 
as "good and lawful prizes." Although France had no navy, 
there were French privateers that could cause much harm. 
More British Orders followed. Napoleon replied by further 
Decrees and by harsher measures on land in the hope of en- 
forcing a " System" capable of defeating his enemy. The 
conflict became a struggle between one power commanding 
the sea and the other controlling the land. 

The French Emperor found it impossible to keep British 
goods from finding their way to the Continent. There was 
too much coast-line to watch and the nations were not suffi- 
ciently sympathetic with his plans to suffer the privations 
and high prices in order that Britain might be defeated. In 
1808 Napoleon was compelled to include Spain in his pos- 
sessions in order to strengthen the " System." His brother 
Joseph was made King of Spain, but the conquest proved 
no easy matter. The occupation of the peninsula is often 
regarded as the beginning of his decline, for the Spanish 
"ulcer" terribly drained the resources and life of France, and 
the stubbornness of this national resistance to the tyrant 
proved malignantly infectious by arousing other countries 
to the same temper. 

Holland had received another Bonaparte as ruler in 1806. 
Louis, who sought to identify himself with this people, would 
not ruin his country by throttling its great maritime com- 
merce. Neutral ships were openly admitted into Dutch ports 
and confiscations did not take place. The country became a 
regular way of entry for the goods of near-by Britain. Na- 
poleon, who could not tolerate this breach in his defenses, 
compelled Louis to abdicate in 1810, and annexed Holland to 
France. A little later in that year northwestern Germany 
was added, which extended the French frontier to Denmark. 
In this way the trading towns of the Hanse came under the 
direct supervision of the Corsican. 

In spite of all these efforts, the "Continental System" did 
not work. Success would have required more military force 



154 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

than Napoleon could obtain even by conscripting boys in 
France and forcing from subject states unwilling levies. 
Britain's sea supremacy, achieved in 1805, controlled com- 
merce so completely that rival commercial navies were swept 
from the sea. The Industrial Revolution had developed 
Britain so wonderfully that it became the necessary source 
for materials for a Continent racked by war. Great Britain 
seized Heligoland in 1807, and used it as a d£pot of supplies 
for the Continent. Another method of keeping trade moving 
was by the use of neutralized vessels. Although contrary to 
the Orders in Council, Britain permitted their use, as they 
assisted in the disposal of goods. These vessels were fur- 
nished with licenses which allowed them to ply their business 
under other flags than the British. Large fleets of licensed 
vessels went yearly to the Baltic with British and colonial 
goods. When loaded for the return, they would be convoyed 
in fleets of about five hundred by the British navy as they 
returned to England. 

The strain of the war became severe on Great Britain, but 
French imperial control suffered still more. In 1811 serious 
commercial crises occurred in France, as French luxuries 
could not find markets and British smuggled produce under- 
sold the French materials. Moreover, Spain still held out 
stubbornly against the French army. 

Another nation, Russia, began to cause serious trouble 
about this time. For some time Russia had been restless un- 
der the "System," and in 1810 Napoleon had written to the 
Czar: "Six hundred English merchant ships wandering in the 
Baltic, have been refused admission to Prussian ports and 
those of Mecklenburg, and have steered for your Majesty's 
states. . . . Your Majesty knows that if you confiscate them 
we shall have peace. Whatever their papers, under what- 
ever names they are masked, your Majesty may be sure they 
are English." x But Russia finally chose war, permitting the 
entry of British goods by a secret understanding. There- 
upon followed the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812. 
The disasters that ensued gave hope to Napoleon's other 

1 Mahan, The Influence of Sea-Power on the French Revolution, n, 344. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 155 

enemies. They joined against him in 1813 and defeated him 
in the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig. Two years later 
came Waterloo. 

THE FRUITS OF BRITISH VICTORY 

One consequence of the sort of war waged from 1806 to 
1812 was the crushing of neutrals. The nations were com- 
pelled to side with the one or the other belligerent, since a 
world war makes neutrality impossible for any nation with 
large outside interests. A neutral carrier could not be left 
the freedom of the sea, for it weakened the commercial 
measures aimed at the enemy. As the United States was an 
important maritime nation with many products of which it 
wished to dispose, the Decrees of Napoleon and the British 
Orders in Council were very seriously felt. The United States 
remained neutral for a time, but in 1812 was led to declare war 
on Great Britain as a result of the difficulties arising out of 
the rights of shipping on the high seas. Madison, as well as 
Calhoun, thought the logical thing was to make war on both 
the nations. Napoleon deceived the United States into 
thinking that he was giving way in regard to his dealings 
with neutrals. As a matter of fact, he did not, while Great 
Britain actually did withdraw the objectionable Orders in 
Council before the United States declared war. Transat- 
lantic communication was so slow, however, that it was not 
known in time. 

Another consequence of the trade-war was the monopoli- 
zation of the commerce of the world by Great Britain. The 
navies of its rivals "fade away" in the unequal struggle. 
The Danish navy, for example, was seized in 1807 and kept 
until the end of the war for fear that Napoleon would use it. 
In addition to the destruction of fighting ships, the com- 
mercial navies of other nations became very weak, and Great 
Britain absorbed the greater part of the carrying trade. 
Thus the necessary complement to industrial supremacy 
was added when commercial leadership on the sea was as- 
sured by the naval supremacy of Great Britain. 

Moreover, Great Britain found the opportunity ideal for 



156 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

enlarging an already extensive colonial Empire, inasmuch as 
the rival colonial empires of France, Spain, and Holland were 
nominally under the control of Napoleon. The Spanish Em- 
pire consisted, in large part, of the continent of South Amer- 
ica. It was as a result of the European war that independ- 
ent nations developed from these colonies. They had drifted 
into independence during the time when Joseph Bonaparte 
was attempting to subjugate Spain; after 1814 the Spanish 
were unable to bring them into submission. They received 
assistance from both Great Britain and the United States. It 
was in this connection that the United States later asserted 
the famous Monroe Doctrine, the germ of which was a sug- 
gestion by the British minister, Canning. This document 
stated the determination of the United States to regard as an 
"unfriendly act towards the United States" any attempt to 
oppress or control the republics that had recently declared 
their independence. The Monroe Doctrine was not aimed 
at Great Britain, although the British made an abortive ef- 
fort during this period to conquer Argentina. It expressed 
opposition to the possible spread to the New World, by the 
reconquest of South America, of the reaction then dominant 
on the European continent. Although the South American 
republics did not become a part of Britain's Empire they 
were an important field for British commercial activity. 

Of the greatest importance were the actual additions made 
to the British Empire as a result of the wars from 1793 to 
1815. The British navy took Tobago in the West Indies and 
St. Pierre and Miquelon (near Newfoundland) in the first 
year of the war. Martinique, Sta. Lucia, and Guadeloupe 
surrendered to Great Britain in 1794. Some of these islands 
changed hands several times before the British won sure 
command of the sea at Trafalgar. After the formation of the 
Batavian Republic in 1795, the Dutch colonies, also, became 
open to British attack. In 1796 Demerara, Essequibo, and Ber- 
bice (parts of Guiana) were taken, and Surinam and Curacao 
were added a few years later. Of the Spanish possessions in 
the West Indies, Trinidad was taken in 1797. In 1801 even 
Sweden and Denmark lost their islands across the Atlantic. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 157 

The Dutch island of Ceylon off southern India was seized 
by an expedition from Madras early in the war. In spite of 
the fact that Ceylon welcomed the end of the severe Dutch 
rule, the natives of the mountainous interior caused the Brit- 
ish considerable trouble, and it was not until 1817 that quiet 
finally prevailed. The British were not slow to appreciate 
the value of the island as a part of their Empire. In the 
same year that Ceylon was taken, Banda and Amboina — 
ancient battle-grounds of British, Dutch, and Portuguese — 
were captured by the British. The very important Dutch 
possession of Cape Colony was occupied by the British in 
September, 1795. 

In 1802 the Peace of Amiens served to stop the struggle, if 
but temporarily. By the terms of this treaty Great Britain 
restored all the colonial possessions of France, Spain, and Hol- 
land it had taken, except Ceylon and Trinidad. Minorca 
and Malta, in the Mediterranean, were also relinquished. 

As noted above, the war was reopened in 1803. Britain 
quickly retook the West Indian possessions which had been 
returned in 1802, and before the war ended no other flags save 
the British and the Spanish waved in that part of the world. 
In the East the British conquered the Dutch island of Java. 
Napoleon's plans against the British Empire in India had 
prompted the occupation of the two French islands, Bourbon 
and the lie de France (Mauritius) off the coast of East Africa. 
With their capture the colonial Empire of France ceased to 
exist. In 1806 Cape Colony was retaken, this time to be 
held permanently and to become the nucleus for one of the 
most important parts of Greater Britain. 

Sir Home Popham had led the expedition to Cape Colony. 
After its capture he proceeded to South America, there to add 
another valuable possession to the British Empire by the cap- 
ture of Buenos Aires. This expedition seems to have been 
made on his own initiative. It is clear, however, that Pitt, 
as early as 1796, had in mind the acquisition of part of South 
America. The Board of Admiralty in 1804 desired Admiral 
Popham to take advantage of any opportunity that arose 
"which might lead to our obtaining a position on the conti* 



158 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

nent of South America, favorable to the trade of this coun- 
try." x Buenos Aires was taken in 1806. The shipment to 
England of goods worth a million and a half dollars aroused 
joy and resulted in the approval of the unauthorized capture. 
The British thereupon determined to send an expedition for 
the capture of Chile. Before it had proceeded to the west 
coast of South America, Buenos Aires had been recaptured 
by the Spanish. The British endeavor to retake the city 
failed through the stupidity of General Whitelock, who had 
twelve thousand troops at his command. Had the British 
at this juncture been efficiently led, the Greater Britain of to- 
day might include the fertile plains of the Argentine. 

By the Congress of Vienna a final disposition was made of 
all the problems arising out of the downfall of Napoleon. 
The British retained, of the Dutch colonies, Ceylon, Cape 
Colony, and a portion of Dutch Guiana (Demerara, Esse- 
quibo, and Berbice). Banda was returned in exchange for 
Cochin and the Dutch possessions on the Malabar coast of 
India. The French received again their colonial possessions 
with the exception of Tobago and Sta. Lucia, in the West 
Indies, and Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. Heligoland, 
which had been taken from Denmark as a convenient post 
for evading Napoleon's "Continental System," was retained 
by Great Britain. Malta was added to the British Empire, 
and the Ionian Islands, west of Greece, were placed under a 
British protectorate. 2 

The additions to the Empire, as a result of the long war, do 
not compare in size to the acquisitions following the Seven 
Years' War or to the losses resulting from the American Re- 
volt. Cape Colony, however, was to prove very important, 
and ample compensation was soon to be found for the loss of 
the American colonies in 1783. Britain does not seem to 
have had any conscious desire to enlarge its colonial posses- 
sions at this time; military considerations were dominant in 
its selection of the enemy's colonies that were kept after 
1815. Otherwise Java certainly would have been retained. 

1 Quoted by Moses, South America on the Eve of Emancipation, p. 255, 
« See p. 341. 



160" 140° 120° 100" 80° 60° 40" 




160° 



140" 120° 100" 80° Longitude 00' West 40° from 20° Greenwich 0" L 



' 40° 60" 80° 100" 120° 140° 160° 180° 




East 40' from 60 Greenwich 80' 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND NAPOLEON 159 

It should be noted that during this time the consolidation 
of the Indian Empire was going forward. And Canada, al- 
though as yet confined to the eastern part of the present 
Dominion, was pushing its frontier westward. George Van- 
couver, in the last decade of the century, made important sur- 
veys of the west coast of North America, where an important 
British colony was to take root. Beginnings had been made 
in Australia as well. 

Even though there was no great conception of a new colo- 
nial Empire, it was at hand. The war had once more made 
clear the naval supremacy of the British. This, in turn, gave 
a feeling of security in the possession of distant lands. Along 
with the naval supremacy Great Britain had obtained the 
monopoly of maritime commerce as well as a more secure 
leadership in industry. It was but natural that out of the 
sense of security and the need of commercial expansion there 
gradually grew a new Empire. Our next task is to trace the 
rise of this new colonial interest. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Books on the French Revolution are legion. The Cambridge Modern 
History gives a volume to the period. For the maritime operations see 
A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea-Power upon the French Revolution and Em- 
pire, 1793-1812 (2 vols., Boston, 1897). For British policy see J. Holland 
Rose, William Pitt and the Great War (2d ed., London, 1912). A. T. 
Mahan, The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the Sea-Power of Great 
Britain (2 vols., Boston, 1897), is a standard biography. M. R. P. Dor- 
man, A History of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century (London, 
1902, 1904), is a detailed treatment of this crucial period. Vol. i covers the 
years 1793-1805; vol. n, 1805-25. 



CHAPTER XI 

A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 

In 1825 Great Britain had an empire of imposing size. 
There were numerous trading-posts and islands in all parts 
of the globe. Sections of continents, such as India, Canada, 
Cape Colony, and even a continent, Australia, formed part of 
its far-spread dominions. The Empire included lands oc- 
cupied by Englishmen, others by foreign European popula- 
tions, and some largely occupied by native peoples. It was the 
only empire of any importance existing at that time. Eng- 
lishmen might well be proud. In 1811, as the Napoleonic 
wars were drawing to a conclusion, the Quarterly Review ex- 
pressed this satisfaction in such broad possessions in the fol- 
lowing fashion: " England, that 'little body with a mighty 
soul/ has carried its arts and its arms to every corner of the 
habitable globe. If we cast our eyes on the map of the world 
we shall find that the sun in its daily course never sets upon 
Englishmen." 1 

THE NADIR OF EMPIRE 

Yet, strangely enough, this feeling of satisfaction does not 
seem to have been very general in the years immediately fol- 
lowing the downfall of Napoleon. The imperial spirit was 
lacking. This disregard was certainly owing somewhat to 
the domestic troubles following 1815, when social and finan- 
cial readjustment took much attention. The general atti- 
tude of the British public at that time toward its colonies has 
been well described as one of " indifference tempered by un- 
easiness." It is traceable to various causes. 

In the first place, the possessions Great Britain retained in 
the early nineteenth century were not of a character to cause 
great pride. Its fairest colonies — those in North America 
— had become a free United States. Canada was strongly 
French and the Cape largely Dutch in population. In- 

1 Vol. vi, p. 496. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 161 

dia was an immense holding, but its great population was of 
alien stock. The West Indies were overwhelmingly negro in 
race. In fact, the colonies as a whole were not British. The 
population of the colonies about 1825 was three million, 
roughly speaking, of whom two fifths were whites and the re- 
mainder free blacks and slaves. Trouble had occurred and 
was likely to present itself again as the British met other ra- 
cial stocks in these possessions. Canada was to rise in insur- 
rection in 1837, and the negroes as well as the Dutch were 
causing trouble at the Cape. In the West Indies the labor 
problem was arousing continual anxiety, as the abolition of 
the slave-trade in 1807 had not improved matters for the 
planters. In addition to all this we must remember that the 
beginnings of the great colony of Australia had been made 
with the worst classes of the population; the transportation 
of criminals to New South Wales had been carried on since 
1788. When the British thought of colonies, they thought of 
backward native peoples or the transportation of criminals 
and paupers, conditions that caused the very word " colony " 
to " stink in the nostrils of self-respecting men." 

Another important cause for dissatisfaction was the great 
expense of colonial establishments. And this was in the face 
of a desire for retrenchment after the exhausting Napoleonic 
conflict. In 1830 Sir J. W. Gordon stated this widespread 
feeling when asked to take part in an inquiry concerning co- 
lonial expenditure: "The House of Commons and the public 
have their attention very closely fixed upon the state of our 
Colonies; they have for years been made the scapegoat of our 
expenditure, and when we are now called upon to explain the 
reasons for keeping up our present military establishments, 
our answer is ' The Colonies, the Colonies.' There is no de- 
partment of the public service which has not a drain upon its 
resources from the Colonies.'' * Colonies also served as a 
convenient means of satisfying placemen and obtaining the 
perquisites of office, since it was hard to make government at 
a distance responsible. Charles Buller wrote as late as 1840: 
"The patronage of the colonial office is the prey of every hun- 

1 Quoted in King's College Lectures on Colonial Problems, pp. 144r-45. 



162 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

gry department. On it the Horse Guards quarters its worn- 
out general officers as governors; the Admiralty cribs its 
share; and jobs which even Parliamentary rapacity would 
blush to ask from the Treasury, are perpetuated with impu- 
nity." x 

The colonial burden was satirized in 1828 by Disraeli in 
his Voyage of Captain Popanilla. An uninhabited island, 
consisting of bare rock, is discovered by the secretary. Its 
fortification is immediately ordered; a president of the coun- 
cil is appointed, a bishop, judges, and an agent for dealing 
with the original inhabitants. Popanilla asks why this small 
rock is crammed "full of clerks, soldiers, lawyers and priests." 
The guide replies: " I am the last man in the world to answer 
questions, but I believe we call it the colonial system." 2 

The numerous references to the expense of the system 
make it evident that the problem was felt keenly. The trade 
with the West Indies was decreasing in value during this pe- 
riod, owing to the discontinuance of the slave-trade and the 
competition of the beet-sugar industry on the European con- 
tinent. If the important sugar colonies no longer served the 
mother country, small use could be found for the snow-clad 
Canadas or the distant possessions in the southern hemi- 
sphere. Sir Henry Parnell published, in 1830, a work en- 
titled Financial Reform, in which he concluded: "The dis- 
covery of the real sources of wealth has shown the folly of 
wasting lives and treasure on colonial possessions." 3 In 
1825 J. R. McCulloch discussed at length in the Edinburgh 
Review the value of colonial territories. Serious objection to 
the idea of colonies was advanced by this important econo- 
mist on the ground of expense. "The mere military expense 
attending the government of our West Indian and North 
American colonies costs the treasury of Great Britain, in 
times of peace, little less than a million a year, exclusive of 
the revenue collected in them. . . . We defy any one to point 
out a single benefit, of any sort whatever, derived by us from 
the possession of Canada, and our other colonies in North 

1 Mills, The Colonization of Australia, p. 16. 2 Ibid., p. 16. 

* Quarterly Review, xlii, 506. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 163 

America. They are productive of heavy expense to Great 
Britain, but of nothing else. We are well convinced that it is 
a moderate computation to affirm that these provinces have 
already cost us sixty to seventy millions." * 

Trade was often given as a reason for keeping and develop- 
ing colonies. This argument seemed especially defenseless 
during the early years of the nineteenth century. The United 
States, no longer an expense to Great Britain, had proved 
since its independence a very important market for British 
materials. McCulloch further argued the uselessness of colo- 
nies by using the United States as an example. "Has the 
emancipation of the American colonies been in the slightest 
degree prejudicial to our wealth, commerce or industry? 
The reverse, as every one knows, is decidedly the fact. We 
have continued since the peace of 1783, to enjoy every pre- 
vious advantage resulting from our intercourse with the colo- 
nies; and we have done this without being subjected, as was 
previously the case, to the heavy expense of maintaining 
armaments for the defence of such distant and extensive terri- 
tories. . . . Our trade with the United States, now that they 
are independent, rests on quite as firm a basis as it did when 
they were subject to our regulations." 2 

The United States served as an influence, in another way, 
that led to doubt as to the value of the colonial system. 
Englishmen became more and more convinced that the loss 
of the American colonies had taught the uselessness of en- 
deavoring to keep dependencies that had come to maturity. 
Turgot, Dean Tucker, and Adam Smith seemed right. The 
colonies apparently proved two things: that a growing de- 
mocracy led to an increasing restiveness in imperial bonds; 
and that the attempt to make the colonies self-supporting 
or to induce them to share in imperial expense would be un- 
availing. The British statesmen of the day were thinking 
largely in terms of the financial return. The same attitude 
that caused the weakening of the old colonial system in 1783 
was tending to break up the whole fabric of external domin- 
ion. Imperialistic thinking, wit& which we are familiar to- 
1 xm, 291. « Ibid., p, 284, 



164 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

day, was rare indeed. If some of the Whig leaders of the day- 
had had their way, Great Britain might have had no old 
Empire as a nucleus for the new. 

. The Edinburgh Review, in considering in 1808 a life of 
Washington, declared that " America left because the acqui- 
sition of wealth and power had brought to maturity that la- 
tent principle of revolt which inheres in all distant colonial es- 
tablishments. We admit (with Talleyrand in his excellent 
Essay on Colonies, and Mr. Baring, also, in his late excellent 
pamphlet) with all these writers, that independence is a stage 
at which all distant and prosperous colonies are destined ul- 
timately to arrive. If foresight does not voluntarily relax 
the ties of the metropolis, force will in time assuredly break 
them." * Three years later even the Tory Quarterly Review 
expressed hesitation regarding the colonial system. This 
periodical, in reviewing some books on Java, discussed the 
subject in the following manner: "We beg leave to premise 
that we are not among those who declaim against the colonial 
system. . . . But in admitting this (the value of colonies) we 
must also admit that we may be over-colonized." The au- 
thor declared that the drain on the population would not be 
serious, but he questioned the possibility of meeting the ex- 
pense. He accordingly advocated the voluntary relinquish- 
ment of lie de France, Bourbon, Java, and the other Dutch 
possessions in the East Indies. The same Review in 1816, in 
discussing the probable independence of South America, gen- 
eralized in the accepted manner: "Unless the people of the 
Spanish colonies are made of material different from the rest 
of the species, we may venture to predict that their final 
emancipation is an event not very far distant." 2 

Violent disapproval of the colonial idea continued to ap- 
pear at the close of the first quarter of the century. In 1830 
the Westminster Review could say that "colonial dominion 
has been the bane and curse of the people of this country." 
In the same year Sir Henry Parnell, whose point of view has 
been noted above, advocated the relinquishment of colo- 
nies, especially of the Ionian Islands, Ceylon, the Cape, Mau- 

1 xin, 153, 2 vi, 496-98, and xiv, 401. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 165 

ritius, and Canada. He concluded his suggestions in the fol- 
lowing way: "It is clear that, on the whole, the public de- 
rives no commercial advantage from colonies which it might 
not have without them." 1 

The opinions of the very influential economist, J. R. Mc- 
Culloch, whose contributions to the Edinburgh Review have 
already been noted, received an even wider reading in his 
Statistical Account of the British Empire, which appeared in a 
second edition of two bulky volumes in 1839. This, the best 
contemporary survey of Great Britain's varied activities, has 
a misleading title to present-day students of British expan- 
sion. Hardly a dozen pages of the fifteen hundred that make 
up the two volumes are concerned with " Colonies and De- 
pendencies." The author affirms that "our colonies confer 
on us no direct advantage," since the supposed value of col- 
ony trade is largely "imaginary," and because the dependen- 
cies are a cause of continual expense to the British nation. 
In addition to the direct expenditure of about two and a half 
million pounds, McCulloch would add indirect expenditure 
through discriminating duties and the outlay on military 
force to keep them in subjection. The United States is in- 
stanced as an illustration of the advantage of relinquishing 
colonies, while Canada is regarded as a possession which 
"never has been of advantage to England" and which "in 
some ten or twenty years will be independent or will be in- 
corporated with the United States." The Canadian Rebel- 
lion of 1837, which was undoubtedly in his mind as he penned 
these words, seemed to give additional point to his earlier 
statement that England was but paying out money to pre- 
pare a colony for the United States: "Certainly John Bull 
discovers no great impatience of taxation, when he quietly 
allows his pockets to be drained, in order to clear and fertilize 
a province for the use of his rival Jonathan." 

It should be clear from the opinions that have been called 
in witness that "men of sense" held colonies to be a question- 
able good. Where there was not violent opposition there was 
indifference, an indifference that reformers of the day found 

1 Quarterly Review, xlii, 505. 



166 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

it hard to overcome. Gibbon Wakefield, Wilmot Horton, 
Joseph Hume, and others complained of this chilling neglect. 
Lord Stanley, in 1834, even apologized to the House in dis- 
cussing a subject (the colonies) on which it was so difficult 
to command its attention. 

BEGINNINGS OF A NEW INTEREST 

By the close of the reign of George IV, however, a new in- 
terest in colonies was already evident. The worth of these 
distant possessions was conceived, not from the economic 
point of view or the narrow and unimaginative attitude of the 
financial reformer and tradesman. The method of approach 
was that of the philanthropist, interested in the spread of 
British influence or in the relief of social and industrial condi- 
tions at home. It was as a solution of domestic problems 
that the new belief in the efficacy of colonies developed. 

Britain's population had grown rapidly in the days of the 
Industrial Revolution. About 1750 England had six and a 
half million inhabitants, which had increased by a million in 
the preceding hundred years. In the last fifty years of the 
eighteenth century, two and a half million more had been 
added. By 1830 five more millions of people brought the pop- 
ulation to nearly fourteen millions — double its size seventy- 
five years before. Along with this had gone the evils attendant 
upon factory work and concentration in the large cities. Pau- 
perism had increased so seriously during the early nineteenth 
century that it was an almost constant subject of discussion 
for those concerned with the welfare of England and its 
children. A committee of the House of Commons, appointed 
to consider the poor laws in 1818, found an appalling situa- 
tion. More than nine tenths of the population were occa- 
sionally subsisting on public charity, and the nation was an- 
nually taxed for their support over eight million pounds, a 
sum " larger than its whole revenue in the days of its great- 
est power and glory." x 

Malthus (who died in 1834) had called attention, at the 
beginning of the century, to the alarming increase in popu- 

1 Edinburgh Review, xxix, 500. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 167 

lation. In 1798 and again in 1803 he stated clearly and un- 
reservedly the principle that population at all times tended 
to outrun subsistence. There could be no permanent ameli- 
oration of the conditions of the lower classes so long as the 
proportion continued to increase at its present rate. A re- 
distribution of wealth might be of value, but in spite of that 
population would soon overtake subsistence. Starvation 
would then be the check on further increase. 

Emigration naturally occurred as a solution of the distress 
of the lower classes in Great Britain. Out of this grew a new 
interest in the colonies for the relief of the conditions at home. 
Thereupon it was natural to find a fresh stimulus for colonial 
ideals, since the establishment of new Britains beyond the 
seas would create a new value for colonial territory. Mal- 
thus, himself, held that migration would be inadequate in 
making room for unrestricted increase, although it might be 
a temporary relief for the condition in which Great Britain 
found itself at that time. 

In 1812 the Quarterly Review, in discussing the poor laws 
and the increase in population, advocated emigration. 
" Cast a thought over the map and see what elbow room there 
is for England. ... It is time that Britain should become the 
hive of nations and cast her swarms. What is required of 
government is to encourage emigration by founding settle- 
ments and facilitating means of transportation." Two years 
later this Review declared: "If the population of our happy 
and prosperous island goes on increasing as it has done in the 
last half century, the time cannot be far distant when it may 
be thought wise policy to encourage emigration by a bounty." 1 

One of the early advocates of emigration was Lord Sel- 
kirk. In 1792, in a tour of the Highlands, he had found the 
changing conditions very hard for many of the lower classes 
of the population. He concluded that emigration was una- 
voidable and that it should be directed to the British colonies. 
In 1803 he sent out eight hundred emigrants to Prince Ed- 
ward Island, a venture that was an unqualified success. In 
1810 Lord Selkirk acquired control of the Hudson's Bay 

1 viii, 355, and xi, 252. 



168 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Gompany, and in the following years sent out the first of his 
settlers to the Red River Valley (now in Manitoba). This 
effort at establishing a colony was not so successful as the 
first, for he met determined opposition from the Northwest 
Fur Company. With the amalgamation of the two com- 
panies in 1821, the country was gradually and peaceably 
settled. 

Lord Selkirk was a remarkable man, who lived somewhat 
before his time. It was not until the close of the Napoleonic 
wars that the modern history of emigration from the British 
Isles began. The movement is one of the most noteworthy 
in the nineteenth century. But two thousand and eighty- 
one emigrants left England in 1815; in 1850 "over three 
hundred thousand emigrated. This continually increasing 
stream sent to various parts of the world the British language 
and ideas. Many of the emigrants went to the United 
States and other countries outside the Empire. Great num- 
bers, nevertheless, were directed to the British colonies. It 
was out of this movement that a new Empire grew. 

In 1819 the ministry, alarmed at the distress of the lower 
classes in England, procured a vote of £50,000 to assist la- 
borers to the Cape of Good Hope. Imperial grants were 
made in 1821, 1823, and again in 1825 to assist emigrants 
from Ireland to Canada and the Cape. In 1826 and 1827 
committees of the House of Commons considered the prob- 
lem at great length, recommending that a Board of Emi- 
gration be established. The Committee of 1827 reported: 
"Emigration appears to your Committee to be a remedy well 
worth consideration, whether with reference to the improved 
conditions at home, and the saving of that expense which, as 
it appears to your Committee, is now incurred in the main- 
taining a portion of them, or with respect to the prosperity of 
your colonies." x The first vote for an Emigration Establish- 
ment was in 1834. 

Wilmot Horton, who became Under-Secretary of State for 
War and the Colonies in 1822, was responsible for a good deal 
of this governmental interest in emigration. His aim was to 

1 Mills, Colonization of Australia, p. 41. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 169 

free England of its surplus population and at the same time 
to furnish laborers to the colonies needing them. Horton 
believed that this would strengthen the bonds between the 
mother country and its dependencies, especially Canada. 
His scheme, which was confined to the shipment of paupers, 
was to be aided and controlled by the State. The grants of 
1823 and 1825 were for the purpose of settling paupers in 
Canada and the Cape. Three hundred and fifty laborers 
were sent to the Cape and about six hundred Irish paupers to 
Canada. In 1827 two thousand more were sent to British 
North America. Horton was chairman of the Committee of 
1826 and also of that of 1827. In 1828 and again in 1830 he 
introduced bills in the House of Commons to enable parishes 
to send " able-bodied paupers" to British colonies. In 1831 
he was knighted and made Governor of Ceylon. When he 
returned to England in 1839, the work of the "systematic" 
colonizers was already under way. 

EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD 

The man chiefly responsible for creating the new interest 
in the colonial Empire was Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He 
was born in 1796. In 1816 he had married a ward in chancery, 
who died in 1820, leaving him two children. Six years later 
he made another runaway match with an heiress whom he 
lured from school. As a result he was arrested and sentenced 
to three years' imprisonment in Newgate. Quite naturally 
he was an object of suspicion, and his work was always hin- 
dered by the burden of his early misdeeds. 

Wakefield's imprisonment was a turning-point in his ca- 
reer. WTiile in Newgate he became interested in the colo- 
nies, possibly as a result of his contact with paupers and con- 
victs. At any rate, in 1829 he wrote eleven letters to the 
Morning Chronicle which were republished in book form 
under the title A Letter from Sydney . . . together with the Out- 
lines of a System of Colonization. So vivid were the letters 
that they seemed the work of an inhabitant of New South 
Wales. In them the colonist pictured his difficulties to the 
people in the homeland. With plenty of land he was hin- 



170 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

dered in its development by the lack of labor; the convicts 
were not entirely satisfactory in this regard. Laborers com- 
ing from England were lured away by the opportunity of 
having land of their own, as it was obtainable very easily. 
The main hindrance to the growth of the colony, therefore, 
was the scarcity of labor. To remedy this the Letter from 
Sydney proposed what came to be known as "systematic col- 
onization," a method by which the prosperity of the colonies 
would be assured. 

Wakefield's scheme, however, was intended to solve much 
more than the labor problem of a colony. A manufacturing 
country, such as England, would obtain a cheap grain supply 
by the use of labor in colonial fields, and there would be fur- 
nished for the manufacturer a larger market for his goods. 
In reply to those who disparaged colonies by saying that an 
independent country was as good a market as a colony, he 
declared that there did not exist sufficient available markets 
in independent states. In consequence, new colonies must be 
founded and old ones extended. The plan was also supposed 
to solve the difficulty of excess population that was felt so 
seriously at that time in Great Britain. Competition for em- 
ployment would be relieved and the poor rate for paupers 
would be lessened as well. He showed, in addition, that col- 
onization furnished a field for capital that was not at that 
time profitably employed at home. 

Just what was his plan and why did it seem so attractive? 
To remedy the scarcity of colonial labor he proposed that the 
land in the colonies be sold instead of given away. The land 
was to be valued at a "sufficient" price, so that the laborers 
coming to the colony would be compelled to work for wages 
for a time with the prospect of owning land later. It was 
intended by this proposal to keep a correct relation between 
land and labor. Under such conditions colonial capitalists 
would pay the cost of an emigrant's passage, and emigrating 
capitalists would bring laborers. The revenue resulting from 
land sales was to become an emigration fund, which, however, 
was not to be used unsystematically. The haphazard ship- 
ping of paupers and convicts to the colonies was to cease. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 171 

Emigrants were to be selected in such a way as to take from 
the mother country and introduce into the colony the great- 
est amount of population and labor at the least cost. He 
considered that young married couples should be given the 
preference. 

Gibbon Wakefield had pronounced views also regarding 
the political relation of colonies to the home Government. 
Indeed they were nothing less than revolutionary, for he ad- 
vocated colonial self-government. The numerous evils cen- 
tering in the Colonial Office he assigned to the arbitrary sys- 
tem of " government from a distance." He blamed the loss 
of the American colonies on the attempt to deprive them of 
their " municipal" right of government and to substitute for 
it the " central" principle of administration from the distant 
center of the Empire. His proposal was a return to the sys- 
tem by which the American colonies had been governed be- 
fore the " tightening" policy was inaugurated in 1763. It 
would be cheap, the people would rule themselves well in their 
own interests, colonies would thereby become attractive to 
emigrants, and they would gradually acquire the means for 
their own protection. The theory of Gibbon Wakefield was 
strange indeed. Colonies were to be fostered and given an 
honorable place in the Empire. Colonists were to be proud 
of their work and of their place. A new spirit was to be 
breathed into the colonial Empire of Great Britain. 

Wakefield published anonymously in 1833 a book entitled 
England and America, which developed his ideas with greater 
care. In 1849 he issued his final work, A View of the Art of 
Colonization. Besides these volumes many magazine articles 
appeared from his facile pen. 

This remarkable thinker was not alone in fostering these 
ideas, for he inspired an able group of followers who con- 
tributed much to the spread of the new conceptions. His 
most intimate helper was Charles Buller. A man of ability 
and power, he was elected to Parliament on the passing of the 
Reform Bill in 1832, representing Liskeard from that time 
until his death in 1848. Buller was a strong reformer of the 
group known as the Philosophical Radicals. When Lord 



172 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Durham went on his mission to Canada in 1837 he chose 
Buller as his chief assistant. 1 In 1840 Buller published 
Responsible Government for Colonies. Another important 
member of this group was Sir William Molesworth, who 
entered Parliament in 1832 as a Philosophical Radical. In 
1837 he acted as chairman of the Transportation Committee 
and wrote a report that created considerable discussion. His 
great aim was to further self-government in the colonies; 
and he always insisted that it was consonant with a close re- 
lation to the mother country. His advice in 1838 to the 
House of Commons was : " Do not ' emancipate your colonies ' ; 
but multiply and improve them — reform your ideas of colo- 
nial government." 2 

Another important supporter of the Wakefield system was 
John Stuart Mill. George Grote, the historian, is to be in- 
cluded in this group as well. R. S. Rintoul, the editor of the 
Spectator (but recently founded), made his publication the 
organ of the systematic colonizers. Jeremy Bentham, 
shortly before his death in 1832, became convinced of the 
value of the Wakefield theory. Sir Rowland Hill, later so 
famous as the author of the penny postal system, became 
secretary in 1832 of Wakefield's company for colonizing 
South Australia. Lord Howick, afterwards the third Earl 
Grey and Colonial Secretary from 1845 to 1852, was an early 
convert. 

SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION 

In, 1830 the group, of whom Wakefield was the center, 
formed the National Colonization Society "to establish a 
general system of colonization, founded on the main princi- 
ples of Selection, Concentration, and the sale of Waste Land, 
for the purposes of Emigration." It had an uphill struggle. 
Yet the society zealously issued pamphlets and agitated for 
their particular theory and for a general interest in the colo- 
nies. In 1831, through the influence of Lord Howick, the 
Colonization Society was successful in bringing about the 

1 See below, pp. 225 ff. 

2 Quoted in King's College Lectures, p. 157. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 173 

appointment of an Emigration Commission. Regulations 
regarding the sale of waste lands were put in force, the income 
to be used as an emigration fund. During the next four 
years £42,000 was expended and nearly three thousand 
women emigrants were assisted. In 1837 an Agent-General 
for Emigration was appointed to superintend this whole mat- 
ter for all the colonies. In 1840 a new Land and Emigration 
Board was created, whose instructions conformed rather 
closely to the Wakefield theory. In 1842 the sale of the Aus- 
tralian public lands became obligatory. Charles Buller's 
connection with the Durham mission to Canada has already 
been noticed. Wakefield, also, went with the mission; 
though in no official capacity, he exercised a strong influence 
on this very important report, by which responsible govern- 
ment was recommended for the colony and in which the 
questions of land and emigration occupy important places. 

It was not only by propaganda and by influence on legisla- 
tion that the systematic colonizers showed their effective- 
ness; they furthered colonization plans of their own. In 
seeking for a site on which to carry out their ideas they 
avoided New South Wales on account of the transportation 
of convicts to Botany Bay. South Australia was selected as 
the location for their practical experiment. The home Gov- 
ernment was hostile, but after four years of waiting a bill 
authorizing the plan went through Parliament, and in 1836 
the colony was founded at Adelaide. South Australia was 
not successful in the beginning in the sense that it was self- 
supporting, but the expense was largely the result of careless- 
ness in controlling the venture, for which Wakefield and his 
plan were not to blame. By 1843 it was in a prosperous con- 
dition. 1 

A further result of the Wakefield movement was the estab- 
lishment of colonies in New Zealand. As the Government 
refused to sanction the plan to colonize this unclaimed terri- 
tory, the New Zealand Land Company, under the active di- 
rection of Wakefield, determined in 1839 to go ahead without 
governmental sanction, on the ground that New Zealand 
1 See chapter xv for a detailed consideration of this experiment. 



174 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

was a no man's land. In 1840 a treaty was made with the 
natives just in time to forestall French efforts to possess what 
has proved to be one of the most important of Britain's colo- 
nial possessions. It was settled on a system of land sales and 
assisted emigration. Wakefield spent the last years of his 
life as a New Zealand citizen, dying at Wellington in 1862. 1 

A great change had come in colonial affairs by the agita- 
tion and work of these reformers in the two decades follow- 
ing the Reform Bill of 1832. Transportation was brought 
into disfavor and largely discontinued. Old colonies were 
invigorated and new colonies established. Emigration of a 
superior class of settlers was assisted. Self-government be- 
came the accepted ideal for colonies of British stock. Above 
all, there was a revival of the colonizing spirit and of colonial 
interests on the part of the British public. Thus a great 
change was brought about in British colonial policy. Colo- 
nists were no longer so vastly underrated politically and so- 
cially as they had been in the days gone by. Charles Buller 
expressed this change in 1843, when he said: "A colonial ca- 
reer is now looked upon as one of the careers open to a gentle- 
man." In our study of the particular parts of the Empire we 
shall find many men of distinguished name and ability dedi- 
cating their services to colonial development. 

Yet it must not be forgotten that an interest in a colonial 
empire was by no means universal, even by the middle of 
the nineteenth century. During the whole of Queen Victo- 
ria's reign there were two currents of opinion with regard to 
the lands oversea. During the first half of the century the 
anti-imperialists — later dubbed "little Englanders" — were 
strong. The grant of self-government to the dominions and 
the increasing English-speaking populations in the oversea 
possessions, in addition to the growing attractiveness of em- 
pire to all the European nations in the years following the 
opening-up of Africa, led to a remarkable change of senti- 
ment. In the later days of Queen Victoria's reign imperial 
problems were to become more and more engrossing. 2 

1 See pp. 252 ff. 

2 See chapter xvn for the evolution of this colonial interest. 



A NEW COLONIAL INTEREST 175 

As a result of the change of sentiment traced in this chap- 
ter, a new Empire has taken the place of the old one so badly- 
discredited by the experiences of the eighteenth century. 
The history of the English-speaking people is no longer an ac- 
count of what happens in the southern half of an island adja- 
cent to the European continent. It is not even the record of 
the complex life of Great Britain as a whole. Great Britain 
has evolved into a greater Britain, whose world-empire is 
the largest yet created on the globe. The history of the 
British Isles is henceforth intimately bound up with that of 
its distant possessions. Therefore, it is our next task to turn 
to the various parts of the expanding Britain to examine the 
way in which they evolve under the new conceptions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

H. E. Egerton, whose Short History of British Colonial Policy is of im- 
portance for the whole course of imperial development, has an interesting 
lecture on the "Colonial Reformers of 1830" in The King's College Lec- 
tures on Colonial Problems, edited by F. J. C. Hearnshaw (London, 1913). 
An important handbook of use from this point is the concise treatment of 
British Colonial Policy, 1783-1915 (Oxford, 1916), by C. H. Currey. A 
book of prime value in connection with the subject of this chapter is R. C. 
Mills, The Colonization of Australia, 1829-1842, The Wakefield Experiment 
in Empire Building (London, 1915). There is a Life of Wakefield by 
R. Garnett (London, 1898). An excellent edition of Lord Durham's Report 
has appeared under the editorship of Sir Charles Lucas (3 vols., Oxford, 
1912). H. E. Egerton has edited the Selected Speeches of Sir William 
Molesworth on Questions Relating to Colonial Policy (London, 1903). For 
the colonial experiment of Lord Selkirk see Chester Martin's Lord Sel- 
kirk's Work in Canada (Oxford, 1916) in the "Oxford Historical and Lit- 
erary Studies." 

In addition to the various volumes to which reference has already been 
made, there are the contemporary publications of the reformers and others. 
Mention should be made of the works of Gibbon Wakefield, Charles Bul- 
ler's Responsible Government for Colonies (1849), Sir George Cornewall 
Lewis' Essay on the Government of Dependencies (1841), Herman Merivale's 
Lectures on Colonies and Colonization (1841), and J. A. Roebuck's The 
Colonies of England (London, 1849). Lewis' Essay has been edited by Sir 
Charles Lucas (Oxford, 1891). Wakefield's A View of the Art of Coloni- 
zation has been made available by the Oxford University Press (1914). 
The best contemporary statement of conditions is J. R. McCulloch's 
A Statistical Account of the British Empire (2d ed., 2 vols., London, 1839). 
The work of McCulloch is almost wholly concerned with Great Britain. 
A valuable contemporary description of the colonies is the History of the 



176 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

British Colonies (5 vols., London, 1834), by R. Montgomery Martin. This 
extensive work is based on a personal knowledge of many of the colonies, 
and was published with the ardent desire to make evident the intrinsic 
worth of the colonies "which is neither understood nor appreciated by 
the mass of the people." 



CHAPTER XII 
THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 

The Battle of Plassey, won by Clive in 1757, is usually re- 
garded as the initial step in the rapid growth of British do- 
minion in the Indian peninsula. In a former chapter the 
events leading to this decisive contest have been narrated. 1 
French and English competition had produced military con- 
flict and encouraged intrigue with the native rulers. Before 
the Battle of Plassey, the British had been concerned largely 
with coastal holdings, the most important of which were 
Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. The East India Company 
was interested in commerce ; it must not be forgotten 
that the military exploits of Clive in the Carnatic and Ben- 
gal had been for a commercial company. With the victory 
of Plassey was to come a change. When the British replaced 
the defeated Nawab by a puppet of their own, Mir Jafar, 
greater trading privileges were obtained in Bengal. No 
other development seems to have been anticipated. 

LORD CLIVE 

To Clive British penetration meant much more; he con- 
ceived the idea of placing this territory directly under the rule 
of the Company. Although this scheme was not carried out 
at the time, it later became inevitable. Nominally the Na- 
wab of Bengal was the ruler, but he held his position at the 
good will of the British. The Company felt that, if it with- 
drew, French or Dutch traders would assume a like relation 
to the native power. Yet, on the other hand, if the Brit- 
ish continued in control, the status quo could not remain. 
Pride, ambition, the prospect of further gain, all counseled an 
advance, for the internal situation of the country was such 
that the expanding trade of the Company and the foreign in- 
terests of Bengal forced either complete withdrawal or fur- 
ther penetration and a larger measure of control. 

1 See pp. 92 ff. 



178 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Before the story of British expansion is studied, there 
should be a clear understanding of the political characteris- 
tics of India in 1757, as the peculiar situation in the penin- 
sula conditioned the measure of success attained by the Com- 
pany's servants. 1 Back in 1526 Babar had founded a great 
Mogul Empire, including much of India and centering in the 
valley of the Ganges with Delhi as the capital. In the first 
half of the eighteenth century this imposing edifice had fallen 
to pieces. There were various reasons for the collapse. The 
Emperors did not show the ability of the earlier representa- 
tives of the royal line. The attempt to control the Deccan 
— the southern part of the peninsula — was too great a 
strain on the imperial resources. The Hindus themselves de- 
veloped strong military power in opposition to their oppres- 
sors, and, as a result, there grew up great provinces in this un- 
wieldy Empire, forming for all practical purposes independ- 
ent states. In the Deccan the Nizam of Haidarabad had 
become the principal ruler. Below the Nizam's territories 
was the state of Mysore, and along the eastern coast 
stretched the Carnatic, in which Madras was located. In 
northern India as well, independent states had emerged. 
West of Delhi, Rajputana under its Indian princes had been 
practically independent since 1715. In the central Ganges 
valley to the east of the imperial capital lay the territory of 
Oudh with its teeming population and the important cities of 
Cawnpore and Lucknow; it had been autonomous under its 
Nawab since about 1730. Still farther to the east, near the 
mouth of the Ganges, was Bengal, still nominally under the 
Mogul. The eastern coast of India, between Bengal and the 
Carnatic, was divided into two principal parts; south of Ben- 
gal stretched Orissa and between Orissa and the Carnatic lay 
the Northern Circars — territories that early became British. 

One of the principal causes for the absolute decrepitude of 
the Mogul Emperor was the invasion of Nadir Shah, the Per- 
sian monarch. In 1736 the Shah had annexed Afghanistan 
to his dominions, and thus had brought his possessions into 
touch with the Mogul Empire. In 1739 he invaded India; 

1 See pp. 88 ff. 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 179 

the capital, Delhi, was captured by the victorious Persians 
and given over to massacre and plunder. The government 
and all wealthy persons were systematically robbed of their 
riches. The immense booty, including the celebrated pea- 
cock throne, was taken back through the Afghan passes. 
Among the rewards of victory were jewels of inestimable 
value, plate, furniture, elephants, and camels, besides a treas- 
ure in money estimated as equivalent to eight or nine mil- 
lions of sterling. Not one but six such invasions were en- 
dured, and, as a result, no vitality was left in the imposing 
Empire of Babar and Jahangir. 

Hardly less weakening than foreign invasion was the emer- 
gence in central India during the seventeenth century of a 
powerful military race known as the Marathas. At the time 
that Clive was conquering Bengal they had under their con- 
trol most of central India from the Nizam's dominions in the 
south to Oudh and Rajputana in the north, and from Bombay 
in the west to Orissa on the eastern coast. These peasant 
soldiers, derisively called by one of the Emperors "the moun- 
tain rats of the Deccan," were such remarkable warriors that 
their sway spread over central India like an uncontrollable 
pestilence. Under their leader Sivaji, who died in 1680, the 
Marathas had established chauth, or blackmail, over much of 
the Mogul territory; one fourth of the revenue of subjected 
states was theirs on condition that they protected the terri- 
tory from further spoliation. In the twenty years preceding 
the Battle of Plassey they had been particularly successful, 
obtaining the cession of Malwa (south of Delhi), Gujerat, 
which lay north of Surat on the west coast, as well as Orissa 
on the east coast. In 1751 they had even been granted an 
imperial tribute from Bengal. 1 The holdings of this race had 

1 Even the British in Calcutta felt the Maratha menace, as the country about 
the trading-post was harried by these marauders. The Hugli River was a 
sufficient protection on the western side, and there were morasses to the east of 
the town; but the danger of an attack on the landward side led the inhabitants 
to measures of defense. In 1742 they began to dig a semi-circular moat at the 
back of the town which followed the course of the modern Circular Road. Its 
ends were to reach the river, but it was never completed along the southern 
boundary. The purpose of the moat is preserved in its name; it was called the 
"Maratha Ditch." _ 



180 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

already broken into groups when the British came into con- 
tact with them. It was this process, so similar to that work- 
ing in the Mogul Empire as a whole that at a later date was 
to aid the British in the subjection of the Marathas. Even 
so, they were to prove the most troublesome obstacle to Brit- 
ish expansion. 

Such was the political situation in India when Clive won 
the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and found himself in practical 
control of Bengal. Mir Jafar was made Nawab, but he served 
as a figurehead, with Clive as the real ruler for the East India 
Company. His immense energy and indomitable will had 
made the British supreme in the lower Ganges valley as far as 
the southern boundary of Oudh. 

The way this newly won power was used was not altogether 
to the credit of the Company or of its servants. There was 
no thought of improving the condition of the country, but of 
extracting as much of its supposedly fabulous wealth as could 
be done by fair or questionable means. The money gained 
was tribute from a subject nawab and province, resembling 
the Marathas chauth in fact if not in name. Before Plassey 
it was agreed that the army and navy should be given £400,- 
000 and that £120,000 should go to the Select Committee of 
six persons. The battle won, the task of inquiring into the 
state of the Nawab's treasury, so deeply interesting to the 
victors, was attended to with all diligence. Although the 
amount found was below expectations, Clive received in all 
for his personal gratuity £234,000 and other members of the 
Company from £50,000 to £80,000. But Clive was not sat- 
isfied. Mir Jafar obtained from the Emperor for Clive the 
title of Omrah or noble, with which it was customary to grant 
a jagir or land revenue when such a title was given. At first 
Clive did not receive the jagir, but on demanding it he was 
granted the enormous annual revenue of £20,000 as a quit- 
rent for lands south of Calcutta. Thus the servant of the 
Company became its landlord. 1 

1 In this curious transaction is found one more similarity between the careers 
of Dupleix and Clive. Dupleix had obtained a, jagir in the days of his prosper- 
ity, and had garnered immense wealth for himself and his relatives. Shameless 
corruption was not confined to the servants of the English Company. Al- 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 181 

After Clive left for England in 1760, the system of "bleed- 
ing" the country was unblushingly continued. Mir Jafar 
was soon deposed in favor of a successor, who granted further 
districts and additional gratuities. In 1763 Mir Jafar was 
restored, with more financial advantages for the British. 
This tool of the British died in 1765 just as Clive was return- 
ing to exercise his second governorship. In England rewards 
had been freely granted to Clive; an Irish peerage and a posi- 
tion in Parliament, in addition to a number of rotten bor- 
oughs he had purchased, made him an important personage. 
On his return to India he reformed as best he could the cor- 
rupt system under which he had waxed wealthy, acting with 
integrity as the Company's servant. He also acquired for 
the Company during this period the diwani or right to collect 
and administer all the revenues of Bengal. The collection 
was made by natives under British supervision and the 
charges of the government of the Nawab were defrayed by an 
annual fixed payment. It was the first real step toward terri- 
torial dominion, but it meant power without responsibility 
and thus left the way open to much abuse. 

In 1767 Clive returned to England broken in health. Five 
years later, when the Company was in bad financial condi- 
tion, two committees of the House of Commons inquired into 
Indian affairs. Colonel Burgoyne at that time moved that 
"Robert Clive had abused the power with which he was in- 
trusted to the evil example of the servants of the public and 
to the dishonor and detriment of the state." 1 Clive was 
finally exonerated and a unanimous vote was recorded to 
the effect that "Robert Clive rendered great and meritorious 
services to his country." Clive, brooding over the attacks 
made on him, and with a name not altogether unspotted, 
took his own life in 1774. Though his acts would not re- 
ceive the approbation of a later age and were not altogether 

though it is no justification of the British, it is certainly true that the French 
had shown the way in this as in many other particulars. 

1 Before the Committee, Clive defended himself on the ground that he 
used restraint: "Am I not rather deserving of praise for the moderation 
which marked my proceedings? . . . Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand 
astonished at my own moderation.". 



182 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

up to the expected standard of his own day, it must be ad- 
mitted that he made possible an Indian Empire for Great 
Britain, acting, as he undoubtedly believed, in the interests 
of the Company and his country. 

WARREN HASTINGS 

The next important Governor of Bengal was Warren Hast- 
ings; from 1772 to 1785 he was the Company's chief servant 
in India. His acts were subject to even more serious attacks 
than were those of Clive, but later students of Indian history 
have been inclined to regard the assaults made upon him as 
excessive in their severity. If Clive made the Indian Empire 
possible, Hastings laid its real foundations. 

His most important work was in the Ganges valley, for 
with his reforms in that part of India we have the beginning 
of a civil administration. The dual system of Clive for col- 
lecting the revenue had proved a failure; henceforth the 
taxes were not only collected but also expended by the Com- 
pany. A Board of Revenue was established, and the treas- 
ury was transferred from the native capital to Calcutta. 
Hastings also set up courts of appeal in Bengal. 

It was during his administration that an important revi- 
sion of the rules of Indian government was effected by the 
Regulating Act of Lord North. The inquiry leading to the 
attack on Clive resulted from the evident need of more care- 
ful scrutiny of the Company's work in the Far East. As we 
have found, the Company was practically bankrupt; in 1772 
Lord North was told that unless the Company could obtain a 
state loan of one million pounds it could not continue in busi- 
ness. In the next year the Government granted a measure 
of assistance to the Company by allowing a drawback on the 
duty on tea reshipped to the American colonies. It was in 
consequence of this attempt to help the Company that the 
good people of Boston indulged in a "Tea Party" as a prel- 
ude to the American Revolution. 

The Regulating Act granted a new constitution. The 
Governor-General of Bengal was to be assisted by four coun- 
cilors, and in their decisions the majority was to decide the 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 183 

action to be taken. The Governor-General and his Council 
were to superintend the other presidencies in their relations 
to the native powers. All correspondence dealing with the 
revenues was to be laid by the Directors before the Treasury. 
In addition, a Supreme Court of Judicature was set up at 
Calcutta. Although the Act left the Nawab of Bengal titular 
head, it made more definite the governmental control of the 
Company. The councilors sent out under the new system 
were critical and suspicious of Hastings, greatly hampering 
his administration by their obstructive tactics and later lead- 
ing to his famous impeachment. 

The only addition to the British territory during the Hast- 
ings administration was that of the country about Benares, 
which was obtained from Oudh. But Hastings' foreign pol- 
icy and accomplishments were important, nevertheless. The 
Emperor, who had been given by Clive some territory for his 
personal support, in the meantime came under Maratha con- 
trol. Hastings promptly discontinued the subsidies formerly 
sent to the puppet and ceded to Oudh the lands that the 
Emperor had been granted by Clive. This close relationship 
established with Oudh led to British assistance for that coun- 
try when it fought the Rohilla War with the Mohammedans 
who controlled the territory of Rohilkhand. By this act a 
precedent was set up whereby British assistance might be 
furnished in a quarrel among the natives. 

In western and southern India Hastings made his influence 
felt also, for as Governor-General he had supervisory power 
in Bombay and Madras. In these parts of India the British 
suffered much from too great an interest in Indian political 
matters. To this was joined bad diplomacy and mismanage- 
ment. In the west Bombay determined to become the mas- 
ter of the Maratha court at Poona. The result is known as 
the First Maratha War. In the beginning of this conflict the 
Marathas were successful. In spite of several brilliant mili- 
tary feats by the British forces, the British were unable to 
obtain more than the status quo, when peace was concluded 
in 1781. The Maratha powers were to remain at peace 
with the British for the next twenty years. 



184 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

In the south the trouble was more serious. Tactless ac- 
tion of the Madras authorities led to the union of Mysore, 
Haidarabad, and the Marathas under the lead of Haidar Ali 
of Mysore. The conflict that resulted (1780-84) is known 
as the First Mysore War. In 1780 Arcot, the capital of the 
Carnatic, fell into Haidar Ali's possession and the territory 
about Madras was given over to pillage. Under the vigorous 
guidance of Hastings, however, the British position was re- 
trieved. Sir Eyre Coote, the victor of Wandewash, was sent 
to the relief of Madras. In 1782 Haidar Ali died, and two 
years later his son Tipu concluded peace. 

All this was expensive; the Company, which had formerly 
been prosperous under Hastings' leadership, faced bank- 
ruptcy. As a result, the Governor-General was involved in 
measures for obtaining money that brought about his im- 
peachment. As early as 1773 charges of defalcation had 
been brought against Warren Hastings. The most famous 
accusation was made by Nandkumar (Nuncomar), a Brah- 
man. Shortly afterward Nandkumar was arrested on a charge 
of forgery that was made by a Calcutta merchant; as a result 
of the trial he was condemned and executed. In spite of the 
surprising coincidence of his accuser having been in turn ac- 
cused and executed, Hastings seems to have been guiltless of 
any connection with the trial of Nandkumar. 

In 1778, when war began with the French, Hastings en- 
deavored to improve the financial situation by levying a war 
contribution from the Raja of Benares, Chait Singh. The 
Raja was finally banished and his successor compelled to pay 
a heavier tribute than that demanded in the first instance. 
The most famous case, however, that grew out of Hastings' 
financial measures was that of the princesses of Oudh, known 
as the Begums. Oudh was paying tribute to the Company, 
but was badly in arrears. The Nawab, as an explanation 
and a solution of his financial condition, complained that his 
mother and grandmother, the Begums, held large landed es- 
tates and a valuable treasure of the late Nawab. Hastings 
consented to the Nawab's request that the treasure be seized 
for the debt of the Company. This act was an abrogation 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 185 

of a treaty, and in the taking of the treasure the Nawab was 
assisted by British troops. 

For these and other alleged acts of oppression Warren 
Hastings was put on trial in 1788, three years after his return 
from India. Burke, Fox, and Sheridan were the leaders in 
an impeachment so bitterly prosecuted that the philippics of 
these famous orators have hardly been excelled for bitterness. 
The trial dragged on until 1795 when Hastings was acquitted 
on all the articles. It is true that the great Governor-Gen- 
eral was compelled to take an aggressive attitude and that 
his methods undoubtedly bordered on the unscrupulous. 
Although he was acquitted, it became more evident than 
ever that the system of Indian administration needed to be 
thoroughly overhauled. In judging both Clive and Hast- 
ings it must be remembered that these two remarkable men 
were working for a trading Company primarily intent on 
financial gain. 

The close of Hastings' administration corresponded with 
the end of the war of the American Revolution and the begin- 
ning of Pitt's long control of British politics. One of the first 
reform acts of Pitt was the improvement of the Indian ad- 
ministration. In 1783 Charles James Fox, during a brief ten- 
ure of office, had proposed an India Bill which was so thor- 
oughgoing that it would have ended once for all the power of 
the East India Company. The measure passed the Com- 
mons successfully, but suffered defeat in the upper house 
largely through a royal influence that would now be regarded 
as unconstitutional. By Pitt's India Act of 1784 the East 
India Company was more than ever subordinated to the 
State. Civil and military matters were to be handled by a 
Board of Control, consisting of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, one of the Secretaries of State, and four Privy 
Councilors. The Proprietors of the Company were to be un- 
able to modify the action of the Board. In India authority 
was granted to the Governor-General and his Council of 
three. 1 - . 

* See pp. 111-13, 



186 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



LORD CORNWALLIS 

For the fourteen years following the India Act of Pitt 
there was very little growth of British power in the peninsula. 
This is the result of two Governors-General who were inter- 
ested more in the matter of internal reform than in the assim- 
ilation of new territory. The first was Lord Cornwallis, well 
known for his part in the American Revolution. He was a 
man of high character, of no personal ambitions, and free 
from the love of money. In 1786 he was persuaded to assume 
the government of India; a special bill was passed by Parlia- 
ment giving him extraordinary powers. As one who had not 
spent his life laboring for the Company, it was felt that he 
could and would bring in the reform measures so much in 
demand. With him the old system of plunder practically 
ceased. He proved the enemy of all that was underhanded 
and questionable, substituting for commissions, generous 
salaries at a fixed amount, and separating the executive from 
the judicial function. 

Cornwallis is remembered especially for the Permanent 
Settlement of the revenue in Bengal. From 1786 to 1789 he 
and Sir John Shore studied the problem. A settlement was 
made in 1789 which was declared permanent in 1793, a set- 
tlement that has aroused much discussion as to its real value. 
The zamindars, or government farmers, were recognized as 
having the right to collect revenue from the actual cultiva- 
tors of the soil. The amount to be paid by them to the Com- 
pany was fixed, while the amounts they collected varied. It 
tended to make the zamindars a landed aristocracy, a position 
that they had not always occupied, and deprived the vil- 
lage communities and peasant cultivators of their privileges. 
The lower classes did not receive real relief from this system 
until the Bengal Land Act of 1859. Cornwallis did impor- 
tant work, also, in elaborating the system of law courts begun 
by Hastings. 

In his relations to the independent Indian governments 
he followed the recommendations from England to "avoid 
schemes of conquest and the extension of dominion in India." 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 187 

Nevertheless, he was forced into war with Tipu, the ruler 
of Mysore. Even Cornwallis found neutrality impossible. 
The Second Mysore War lasted from 1790 to 1792. Tipu 
began the war by attacking an ally of the Company, the Raja 
of Travancore, the ruler of a small state at the extreme south- 
western end of the peninsula. Haidarabad and the Mara- 
thas joined Cornwallis, who led the army in person. Tipu 
submitted when his capital, Seringapatam, was endangered, 
and arranged a treaty of peace by which he gave a large in- 
demnity to his enemies, and surrendered half of his domin- 
ions. The three allies divided the territory; the third re- 
ceived by the British included strategic points by which My- 
sore was effectually crippled. Another war, unfortunately, 
was necessary to bring this troublesome state to terms. 

In 1793 Cornwallis was succeeded by Sir John Shore, who 
had assisted in the settlement of the Bengal revenue. He 
carried the policy of neutrality, or timidity as expansionists 
would term it, to the extreme. The native states took cour- 
age from his inactivity, and as he left office in 1798, the 
country was on the eve of a storm, the more serious because 
it had been delayed. 

LORD WELLESLEY 

The expansion of British power was resumed with the 
governor-generalship of Lord Wellesley, the older brother of 
the better known Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. He 
stands beside Clive and Hastings in the importance of his 
work. Where they had laboriously laid the foundations, he 
built consciously with brilliant success; in seven years the 
British Company became the predominant power in India. 
Wellesley was masterful and self-confident, ideally fitted to 
take control of Indian affairs when the policy of non-inter- 
ference was proving difficult. His aggressive military policy 
was governed in large part by the contemporary world-situa- 
tion. The French Revolution had opened in 1789, and France 
and Great Britain had been at war since 1793. Napoleon 
was just rising to power as a great military leader; already he 
was dreaming of an empire in the East. Wellesley carried to 



188 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

India the imperial point of view and the fear of Napoleonic 
and French ambition, then so important in British thinking. 

He first dealt with Mysore. Tipu smarted under his defeat 
at the hands of Cornwallis, and in the interregnum he sought 
allies with whom to attack his arch-enemy, the British. 
Emissaries were sent to Arabia, Constantinople, Kabul, and 
Mauritius. The emissaries to Mauritius returned with the 
promise of a French alliance for the purpose of freeing India 
from British rule. Tipu planted a liberty tree, became a 
member of the Jacobin Club, and was the proud bearer of the 
title " Citizen Tipu." When his intrigues with the French 
became known, Wellesley promptly attacked him. In the 
Third Mysore War a single campaign was decisive. Tipu 
was compelled to retire to his capital, which was stormed. 
The ruler of Mysore was killed in the attack, and his king- 
dom was left at the mercy of his conquerors. A child of the 
Hindu royal family of Mysore — the family dispossessed by 
Tipu's father — was placed on the throne of a greatly re- 
stricted possession; the Nizam, the Marathas, and the Brit- 
ish divided the rest. 

Wellesley's chief task was the humbling of the Marathas. 
We have already noted the wide extent of their possessions in 
central India, their very efficient military power, and their 
disdain of the apparently weak British rule. At the time 
that Wellesley came into conflict with them they were not 
united, but consisted of independent confederate states. 
The descendants of Sivaji, the great Maratha chief of the 
seventeenth century, still dwelt near Bombay. All power 
had long passed from this line of rulers into that of the Prime 
Minister or Peshwa. The Peshwa dwelt at Poona, some hun- 
dred miles southwest of Bombay, where his territories formed 
a broad belt of land along the west coast. 

In other parts of the Maratha dominions there were chiefs 
nominally dependent on the Peshwa, but actually self-gov- 
erning. Three hereditary generals of the Peshwa — originally 
given lands as a reward for military service — were the prin- 
cipal Maratha lords in addition to the Peshwa. The Bhonsla, 
Raja of Berar, ruled just north of Haidarabad. North of his 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 189 

territories were those of Holkar of Indore, while still farther 
toward the Ganges valley were the possessions of Sindhia. 
In Gujerat, north of Surat, ruled the Gaekwar of Baroda. 
Sindhia was the outstanding leader of the Marathas of this 
time. He ruled in the upper Ganges valley by virtue of a 
finely disciplined army, including in his control at this time 
Delhi and the person of the Mogul Emperor. The Emperor 
had made Sindhia the vicegerent of the Empire. 

When the ruler at Poona died in 1800, Sindhia and Holkar 
immediately endeavored to add to their possessions from the 
territory of the Peshwa. The new Peshwa thereupon fled to 
Bassein and appealed to the British for aid. At the close of 
1802 the British entered into treaty relations with the nom- 
inal ruler of the Marathas. The Peshwa was restored to his 
capital by British troops and henceforth the state's foreign 
policy was to be in British hands. The treaty had an imme- 
diate effect on the Maratha chieftains ; the Bhonsla and Sin- 
dhia combined in a Maratha struggle for independence. The 
Second Maratha War that resulted was one of the most bril- 
liant fought in India. Simultaneous campaigns were carried 
on both in the Deccan and Hindustan, in Gujerat and Orissa. 
Arthur Wellesley, afterwards the Duke of Wellington, won a 
great victory at Assaye in the Deccan in 1803. At the same 
time Lake in the north captured Delhi and brought the aged 
Mogul Emperor once more into the hands of the British. In 
Gujerat and Orissa the successes were equally outstanding. 
In four months the Maratha confederacy was utterly de- 
feated. 

As a result of the war the person of the Emperor came into 
British control. In addition, Sindhia renounced his claims 
to the lands north of the Jumna, the important southern 
tributary of the Ganges. The Bhonsla ceded Orissa on the 
east coast to the British and Berar to the Nizam of Haidara- 
bad. British residents were accepted at the courts of Sindhia 
and Holkar, and they became nominal allies of the British. 
They remained unsubdued, however, and the sullen resent- 
ment and bitter hatred of these native leaders were to result 
in one more Maratha war before their power was destroyed. 



190 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Lord Wellesley proved altogether too imperialistic for the 
Directors and he was recalled in 1805. His constant mili- 
tary operations had increased the Company's debt from 
seven to thirty-one millions of pounds during his governor- 
ship. With his return a reaction from the policy of annexa- 
tion and consolidation was expressed in the brief administra- 
tion of Cornwallis in 1805 and in those of his successors, 
Sir George Barlow and the Earl of Minto. 

THE MARQUESS OF HASTINGS 

The reaction from the Wellesley policy was concluded 
when Lord Moira, later the Marquess of Hastings, became 
Governor-General in 1814. After a nine years' interval he 
completed the work of Lord Wellesley. During his adminis- 
tration three groups of Indian peoples felt the British power 
— the Gurkhas, the Pindaris, and the Marathas. 

The Gurkhas, who claimed a Rajput origin, occupied 
Nepal, a strip of territory about one hundred and thirty 
miles broad stretching along the Himalayas to the north of 
Bengal and Oudh. About the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury they conquered Nepal, but since they were a warlike 
people they found the limits of Nepal altogether too strait- 
ening. As they raided the country to the south they inevit- 
ably came into conflict with the British. In 1814 there be- 
gan a war between them and the British, which was very 
stubbornly fought by these hill people. When peace was 
concluded they lost a few of their territories and a British 
resident was established at the capital. Since that day they 
have given the British no trouble. 

The Pindaris were making central India a place of anarchy. 
Originally they were connected with the Maratha armies as 
irregulars and skirmishers. They consisted of outcasts and 
desperados of all races and with no common religion. 1 The 

1 The Pindaris have not inaptly been compared to the free companies of 
mediaeval Europe. Readers familiar with European history will already have 
noted the feudal character of Indian government. The Peshwa reminds one of 
the major domus of the Merovingians, and the Maratha chieftains of the rulers 
of the early English kingdoms under the Joose overlor&ship of one of their 
number. 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 191 

Pindaris were located principally in Malwa, but extended 
their operations far and wide in central India. In 1815 and 
1816 they plundered the Nizam's lands and laid waste the 
Northern Circars, belonging to the British. Hastings gath- 
ered an army of over one hundred thousand to crush them. 
The Marathas were overawed temporarily while the Pindaris 
were being hunted down and brought under control. 

In 1817, the year that the Pindaris were overcome, the 
Marathas rose for their final duel with the growing British 
power. The Bhonsla, Holkar, and the Peshwa joined in the 
rebellion. Brilliant military operations resulted in the de- 
feat of the Marathas in the third and last war with this, the 
most stubborn of native peoples. Holkar lost half of his 
dominions. The office of the Peshwa was abolished and his 
territory was formed into the Bombay Presidency. At the 
same time the Rajput states accepted a feudal relation to 
the British power. It was decidedly for the advance of 
civil conditions in India that marauders and professional 
fighters such as the Gurkhas, the Pindaris, and the Mara- 
thas were at last rendered harmless. 

This period of expansion is completed by the governor- 
generalship of Earl Amherst. He succeeded the Marquess of 
Hastings in 1823 and ruled for five years. The further ex- 
pansion made during this administration was to the north- 
east in Burma. The boundary between British Bengal and 
these non-Indian territories was ill defined. The Tibetan 
stock that had conquered this country in the valley of the 
Irrawaddy was warlike and very confident of its ability to 
fight a successful war with the British. The unwillingness of 
the British administration to come to an issue with them led 
to a belief among the Burmese that they could conquer Ben- 
gal. In 1824 they encroached on British territory. The 
war that ensued was slowly carried on at great expense, for 
Amherst did not exhibit the ability of Wellesley or Hastings. 
Twenty thousand lives were sacrificed before the treaty was 
signed in 1826. The King of Ava — just below Mandalay — 
ceded two coast provinces, withdrew from Assam, and per- 
mitted a British resident at his court, besides paying a large 
indemnity. 



192 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

This is a convenient point from which to make a survey 
of the accomplishments of sixty years. The period was one 
of rapid expansion broken by stretches of inactivity. Be- 
ginning as a rival of the French and Dutch companies, the 
British East India Company enlarged its work to include the 
control of revenue in the restricted districts. This led inevi- 
tably to the assumption of political power. Yet when this 
step had been taken, it meant that there must be a definite 
attitude toward the independent Indian states, and a policy 
of protecting the states already occupied. In the safeguard- 
ing of the territories already under control it was often felt 
that an aggressive foreign policy was the best one. The 
guarding of British territory could also be insured by means 
of alliances. All these measures complicated the problem 
by the natural extension of British interest and power. And 
thus it happened that in sixty years a great peninsula com- 
posed of many peoples and races and religions and govern- 
ments was brought under a dominant British rule. It is all 
the more amazing when we realize that this expansion took 
place at a time when the idea of empire was at a low ebb in 
Britain. 

In spite of this apparent contradiction, the conquest of 
India must not be thought of as an accident; possession re- 
sulted from the business acumen of a Company whose serv- 
ants were intent on realizing as large dividends as possible 
from this El Dorado of the East. The student of coloniza- 
tion is reminded of the work of the Spanish conquistadores in 
America. Whether or not Great Britain was wise in extend- 
ing its power in India is another question. Suffice it to say 
that by 1828 the British had a great composite problem on 
their hands, for a large part of the Indian peninsula had come 
into British control. The next task was to organize the gov- 
ernment for the good of the governed. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

In the Bibliographical Note for chapter vi are given books on India that 
continue to be of value. Brief biographies of all the important governors- 
general will be found in "The Rulers of India" series, edited by Sir W. W. 
Hunter. The reading of these short biographies is an excellent way to 



THE SPREAD OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA 193 

understand the working of the Indian administration and the growth of 
British dominion. The careers of Clive and Hastings have naturally- 
evoked considerable treatment, often of a biased character. There is an 
excellent life of Clive by G. B. Malleson (1895). The Life of Lord Clive 
by Sir George Forrest (2 vols., London, 1918) is detailed, fully docu- 
mented, and laudatory. Among the more recent treatments is Henry 
Dodwell's Dupleix and Clive (London, 1920). For Warren Hastings notice 
should be made of John Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War (Oxford, 
1892), Sir Alfred Lyall, Warren Hastings (London, 1902), S. C. Grier, The 
Great Proconsul (London, 1904), G. W. Hastings, Vindication of Warren 
Hastings (London, 1909), and M. E. Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings 
in Bengal, 1772-1774 (Oxford, 1918). An excellent source-book is that of 
Ramsay Muir, The Making of British India, 1766-1858 (Manchester, 
1915). 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 

The period that has been outlined in the previous chapter is 
an important one in Indian history. India was conquered 
once more, and this time the conquerors were representatives 
of a totally different civilization. A western people, prima- 
rily actuated by trade, had become the masters of India. 
Their sense of law and order, their attainments, and above all 
their mastery of the physical world were much more advanced 
than those of the peoples they conquered. Fortunately also 
for the inhabitants of the peninsula, they were possessed of a 
desire to spread their own culture, which they regarded as 
superior to that which they found in the peninsula. Instead 
of accepting the civilization of the conquered, as has so often 
been the case in history, these conquerors attempted to bring 
India to a better understanding of European development 
and ideals, an effort that is still in progress. 

By 1825 the control of the peninsula became so evident to 
the British that it led to a sense of responsibility for the wel- 
fare of the country. Conditions had been truly terrible be- 
fore the British came. Abundant justification could be 
found for the British conquest in the abolition of the earlier 
anarchy, if there were need of doing it. Lord William Ben- 
tinck in 1804 contrasted the past with the probable future in 
these words: "If the annals of Indian history are retraced . . . 
it will be found that this vast peninsula has presented one 
continual scene of anarchy and misery. Constant revolu- 
tions without even a proposed legitimate object have suc- 
ceeded each other. Wars of great and petty chieftains, un- 
warranted in their origin and unprincipled in their conduct, 
for the sole object of robbery and plunder, have depopulated 
and laid waste the general face of this unhappy country." 
Bentinck, who was then Governor of Madras and who was 
to inaugurate reform on a large scale when he became Gov- 
ernor-General in 1828, went on to state what should be done: 



196 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

"Happily a period has arrived to these barbarous excesses. 
For the first time the blessings of universal tranquillity may 
be expected. That system of policy which could embrace the 
whole of India . . . deserves the admiration of all the civi- 
lized world. That system which has founded British Great- 
ness upon Indian Happiness, demands in a particular manner 
the thanks and applause of this country." * 

This ideal of the British conquerors began to be strongly 
evident by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. The feeling of responsibility resulting from the con- 
quest accounted in part for this development. The expres- 
sion of this feeling is also to be explained as a result of the 
general movement of ideas then influencing Great Britain. 
We have already seen how new conceptions of empire were 
becoming current about 1830. The idea that colonies were 
extensions of the British stock beyond the seas was to affect 
India as well as the possessions composed mainly of British 
settlers. Then, too, humanitarian feeling was strong at this 
time. The interest in the Indian was but another expression 
of that same sympathy that went out in those days to the 
Catholic, the slave, the criminal, the pauper, and the men, 
women, and children of the overworked lower classes. It 
was at this time that the great missionary societies were be- 
ginning to arouse an active interest in undeveloped parts of 
the globe. 

BENTINCK AND REFORM 

Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General from 1828 
to 1835, was the first Governor-General to act conspicuously 
on the theory that the welfare of the subject peoples was the 
primary duty of the British in India. Bentinck was a thor- 
ough liberal and a man of peaceable inclinations. Moreover, 
pomp and display were distasteful to him. In an unheroic 
way he began the work of making India happy, a task still 
calling for British effort and interest. 

Among the social reforms he inaugurated was the aboli- 
tion of sati — the burning of the living widow on her hus- 
1 Muir, The Making of British India, pp. 282-83, 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 197 

band's funeral pyre. The widow's position in Indian society 
was unhappy indeed. In case of passionate devotion sati 
might be a form of suicide, but too frequently social pressure 
brought about an immolation that was nothing short of 
murder. The custom was time-honored and largely prac- 
ticed. Seven hundred women were said to have been burnt 
alive in Bengal in the year 1817. The former governors had 
hesitated to abolish the custom, for fear of arousing too great 
a resentment in the native population. Bentinck, however, 
after examining the situation carefully, in 1829 made it il- 
legal to practice sati. All persons aiding in such a ceremony 
were declared guilty of homicide, whether or not the woman 
were a willing sacrifice. Bentinck's reforming zeal was jus- 
tified, for no serious consequences followed the act. As he 
wrote in his minute on sati: "The first and primary object of 
my heart is the benefit of the Hindus." 

Another practice he suppressed was thagi. India was bur- 
dened with an organized system of murder and robbery 
carried on by brotherhoods of hereditary assassins known as 
thags or thugs. They had their tutelary goddess, Kali, and 
sacrificial rites. It was their profession to strangle and rob 
innocent travelers. Bentinck deputed Major Sleeman in 
1829 to suppress this system of sanctified robbery and mur- 
der. Gradually information was obtained and the law was 
actively invoked, so that within ten years the thugs had 
largely disappeared within the British dominions and the 
native states as well. A similar evil that was vigorously 
attacked was known as dacoity. The dacoits worked in large 
gangs in contrast to the methods of the thugs. Major Slee- 
man was set at this task also, but success was not so imme- 
diate as in the case of thagi. 

Bentinck also brought about a very great reduction in in- 
fanticide. The killing of female babies was very general. In 
some parts of India the proportion of girls to boys was as one 
to six. The chief motive for this practice was the discredit 
of having an unmarried daughter; the expense of the dowry 
and of the marriage ceremony was very burdensome to the 
parents. Nor was the finding of a suitable husband of the 



19S THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

right caste always an easy matter. The Governor-General, 
in order to improve the situation, limited the possible ex- 
penditure for marriages. Every effort was made to discover 
actual cases of infanticide that the law might be brought to 
bear. As a result the number of girls in the population be- 
came more normal. 

These social reforms would be sufficient to make Bentinck's 
name a prominent one in Indian history. His administra- 
tion is noteworthy, in addition, for the advance of educa- 
tional conditions. As early as 1813 money had been used by 
the Company for educational purposes. But the grants were 
interpreted as applying to the study of the ancient languages 
of the East, such as Sanscrit and Arabic; manifestly this 
could be of very little practical benefit to the people of India. 
India was a great complex, a veritable Babel, and it was rec- 
ognized in Bentinck's administration that no one language 
of the peninsula could be used as the medium for education. 
English was finally chosen as a means for instruction. It was 
argued that the language of the government of the country 
should be taught in the government schools. Lord Macaulay, 
who had much to do with bringing about this reform, pro- 
duced a convincing statement in his famous "Minute on 
Education" that " English is better worth knowing than 
Sanscrit or Arabic." The great advantage of English over 
Sanscrit lay in its civilizing power through the literature and 
the moral standards thus made available and the opportunity 
it gave to the natives to enter the civil service in their own 
country. 

Another important advance was the improvement of the 
government of India and Indian law, especially as far as it 
dealt with the natives. Formerly natives had been excluded 
from all but the lowest offices. During Bentinck's adminis- 
tration the natives were granted increased opportunities; the 
Act of 1833 declared that race and religion should not be a 
bar to public service. 

In 1833 the East India Company's charter came up for re- 
newal and it was once more subjected to important revision. 
This change reflected the prevailing temper of the reform 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 199 

movement. The Company had lost its monopoly of the 
Indian trade in 1813; in 1833 it was no longer permitted to 
compete in the China trade on even terms with private mer- 
chants. It thereby lost almost completely its commercial 
character as a trading company, remaining in an anomalous 
position as partly a private corporation, partly a government 
department. Its dividend of ten and a half per cent was paid 
from the Indian revenues. A fourth presidency, Agra, was 
added to those of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, but it was 
shortly after reduced to a lieutenant-governorship. Britain's 
chief representative in India received the name of Governor- 
General of India for the first time, and Bombay and Madras 
were more strictly subordinated than formerly to this officer, 
who had developed out of the Governor of Bengal. 

By this revision of Indian government a fourth member 
was added to the Council of the Governor-General whose 
special work was the codification of Indian law. The first to 
occupy this office was Lord Macaulay. 1 Liberalism found a 
remarkable expression in the new principles promulgated. 
It was declared (Section 53) that due regard should be had 
for the " rights, feelings and usages of the People" and for 
the " distinction of caste, differences of religion and manners 
and opinions prevailing among different races and in differ- 
ent parts of said Territories." No native was to be kept 
from office by reason of " religion, place of birth, descent or 
colour" (Section 87). Furthermore, Indian territories under 
the government of the Company were opened to British sub- 
jects for residence. The interest in colonization, which has 
been found to be developing at this time in England, was in 
this way applied to India. 

William Bentinck retired in 1835. He was one of the 
best rulers India ever had. His aims were high; his accom- 
plishments, remarkable. The inscription on his statue in 
Calcutta is not mere fustian: "He abolished cruel rites; he 
effaced humiliating distinctions; he gave liberty to the ex- 
pression of public opinion; his constant study was to elevate 

1 Trevelyan's Life of Lord Macaulay contains some interesting observations 
on the India of the early thirties, 



200 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the intellectual and moral character of the nations committed 
to his charge." 

LORD AUCKLAND AND THE NORTHWEST 

Political reasons led to the appointment of Lord Auckland 
in 1836, and with him another period of war and annexation 
succeeded the pacific years of reform and reorganization. 
Fortunately for Great Britain the twenty years following the 
beginnings of Lord Auckland's administration were the last 
years of serious unsettlement in the peninsula. The result of 
this militaristic, expansionist regime was the extension of the 
frontiers of India to their " natural" limits on the northwest 
and the northeast. Along with this accomplishment much 
was done during this period that was unworthy of British 
ideals in its best moments; some acts occurred that are 
regrettable, to say the least. 

The northwest calls for consideration first. In 1836 the 
frontier of the British power on the northwest was the Sutlej 
River, the easternmost branch of the Indus. It flows south- 
west from the Himalaya Mountains, where its sources are not 
far distant from those of the Ganges and the Jumna. To the 
south of the Sutlej lies Rajputana. Beyond the British pos- 
sessions in the northwest were three well-defined territories 
with which the British came into military contact at this time. 
In the lower valley of the Indus west of Rajputana lay Sind, 
a thinly peopled region ruled by Amirs. Its chief importance 
was found in its control of the lower Indus and, therefore, of 
the commerce of northern India which used that mighty 
waterway. The trade of northwest India was thus subject 
to the levies of the Amirs. 

In the upper valley of the Indus beyond the Sutlej River 
lay the Punjab, controlled by a remarkable people known as 
the Sikhs. The Sikh confederacy was a union formed on the 
basis of religion, a "sort of Puritan offshoot of Hinduism." 
With the downfall of the Mogul Empire the Sikhs had de- 
veloped a dominion as the result of their marvelous fight- 
ing ability. During the period we are now studying, their 
ruler was the very able Ranjit Singh, who had entered into 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 201 

treaty relations with the British in 1809 by which the Sutlej 
was defined as the common boundary. Until his death in 
1839, Ranjit Singh preserved with care his good relations 
with the British. 

Beyond the Punjab to the northwest lay Afghanistan. It 
is an exceedingly mountainous country; the loftiest peaks of 
the Hindu-Kush are 24,000 feet high. The ranges run in a 
northeast and southwest direction, and through them a few 
passes of importance communicate with the plain of the In- 
dus. All through ancient times this country had been the 
gateway through which India's conquerors had descended 
into Hindustan. In southern Afghanistan is the city of Kan- 
dahar, approachable from the lower Indus through Sind and 
northern Baluchistan by the Bolan Pass. In the north lies 
Kabul near the headwaters of the Kabul River, and it is ap- 
proached from India through the Khyber Pass. Herat is 
situated in western Afghanistan near the Persian boundary; 
to the north there are the trans-Caspian provinces of Russia. 

In 1836 the political condition of this mountainous bound- 
ary state was anarchic. Shah Shuja, the heir of the old ruling 
family, had been an exile in India since 1809, a pensioner of 
the British. At Kabul Dost Mohammed ruled in his stead. 
The Sikhs and the Afghans were frequently at war, Shah 
Shuja using Ranjit Singh's ambitions as a means of possible 
return to his former dominions. 

It was with this very delicate situation that Lord Auck- 
land interfered. Dost Mohammed desired an alliance with 
the British, but Auckland wisely preferred to keep the friend- 
ship of the Sikhs. Thereupon the Afghan ruler entered into 
negotiations with the Russians. To prevent the growth of 
this Russian influence Lord Auckland determined, by means 
of a military expedition, to replace on the throne the sub- 
servient old man, Shah Shuja. International politics played 
an important part in this decision. The fear of Russian 
power was then predominant in the minds of British states- 
men, and Lord Auckland, as an adherent of Palmerston, 
shared this apprehension. It was felt at the time that Con- 
stantinople was in danger of capture by the Russians. It 



202 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

is true that Nicholas I was adding to his Asiatic territories, 
and the presence of a Russian envoy in Kabul seemed but 
the prelude to an attack on India. Auckland wrote to the 
Secret Committee in 1836 expressing this fear: " Russia can 
have no legitimate ground for extending her political con- 
nections to Afghanistan, while we are necessarily interested 
in the peace and independence of that country by proximity 
and position." • The Crimean War was the chief expression 
of this anxiety over Russian development, an anxiety which 
preserved the despicable government of the Sublime Porte in 
the Balkans as a means of restraining the Russian advance. 

In 1838 the Sikhs, Shah Shuja, and the East India Com- 
pany made a Tripartite Treaty. Although the British were 
not obligated to cross the Indus, it became evident that the 
Shah could not obtain his throne unaided. In an evil hour 
Auckland committed himself to the invasion of Afghanistan. 
As the Sikhs objected to the passage of the British army 
through their territory, it entered Afghanistan through the 
Bolan Pass after crossing the country of Sind. By August 
of 1839 Kabul was in British possession and Shah Shuja 
placed on a throne that was stable only when the British 
lent their aid. It soon became abundantly clear that the 
Shah had not even a small measure of Afghan support. 
Either he must withdraw or the British army must remain. 
Auckland determined to adopt what was a halfway policy, 
by which troops were quartered in Afghanistan, and reduced 
sums paid to the chiefs of eastern Afghanistan to keep 
the passes open. 

By 1841 the situation was precarious, indeed, for rebellion 
was rife. The British military leaders were not efficient nor 
of one mind. Finally it was decided to abandon Kabul and 
retire to Jalalabad. On December 11 an humiliating treaty 
was arranged by the British forces in Kabul; by its terms the 
British were to evacuate Afghanistan, free Dost Mohammed, 
and retire to the frontiers under the safe conduct of Dost Mo- 
hammed's son. On January 6, 1842, the army of sixteen 
thousand began its retreat. The men, women, and children 
were insufficiently provided with clothing, food, and arms. 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 203 

The rigors of the winter and the treachery of the Afghans 
made their retreat one of the most bitter episodes in British 
annals. During the journey about one hundred and twenty 
of the army became prisoners of the natives in the hope of 
acting as hostages for the rest. With the exception of these 
prisoners but one person, half dead, staggered into Jalalabad 
on January 14. British arms had never known such a dis- 
aster. 

Lord Auckland was recalled. He was succeeded by Lord 
Ellenborough, who set himself with vigor to redeem the situ- 
ation. He conceived his task to be that of reestablishing 
British prestige in the northwest. The British forces at 
Kandahar and Jalalabad advanced into Afghanistan and 
captured Kabul. After the burning of its great bazaar, they 
returned to India where elaborate preparations were under 
way for celebrating their triumph. Under the orders of the 
Governor-General they had returned with the gates of the 
tomb of Mahmud at Ghazni, gates supposed to have been 
carried out of India in the eleventh century. In grandilo- 
quent phrase Ellenborough declared that the " insult of eight 
hundred years is avenged." Unfortunately, the gates proved 
to be of later date than the ones taken from India. British 
prestige was not altogether retrieved in spite of the triumphal 
arches and the paeans of victory with which the returning 
army was greeted. 

Ellenborough's love for military glory led, also, to the an- 
nexation of Sind. The Amirs were prepared to attack the 
British if the Afghans were successful. On the other hand, 
the British had flagrantly violated treaty rights in sending 
troops through Sind into Afghanistan. Back of the desire 
for Sind, however, lay the need of vindicating British arms 
and of freeing the commercial intercourse on the Indus. Un- 
der Sir Charles Napier acts of war were committed before a 
declaration was made, with the evident intention of provok- 
ing the natives. The country was annexed in 1843. This 
act of aggression rightly aroused dissatisfaction in England 
and led to the recall of the Governor-General. 

In 1844 Lord Hardinge, a tried soldier, became head of the 



204 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Indian Government. It was felt that further military diffi- 
culties were ahead, and, in truth, the Sikhs were the next peo- 
ple on the northwest frontier with whom the British were to 
have trouble. Ranjit Singh had died in 1839 and since that 
time the Punjab had been restless. The magnificently 
trained and equipped army of the Sikhs was under no ade- 
quate restraint. Finally the British, who maintained a large 
army near the frontier, were led into war by the advance of 
the overconfident Sikh troops into the territory east of the 
Sutlej. The so-called First Sikh War was fought in 1845. A 
number of very severe battles occurred, the last being waged 
on the bank of the Sutlej. When the Sikh capital, Lahore, 
was entered, a peace was arranged that did not provide for 
annexation, as Lord Hardinge was not eager to endanger his 
successes. An indemnity was demanded, the Sikh army was 
cut down, and a British army remained in the Punjab while 
the Government was being reorganized under the son of Ran- 
jit Singh. Colonel Henry Lawrence was appointed Resident 
in Lahore. By this treaty the Punjab was given the oppor- 
tunity of becoming an " independent and prosperous" state. 

LORD DALHOUSIE 

In 1848 Lord Hardinge was succeeded by Lord Dalhousie, 
one of the most important of India's numerous governors. 
From 1848 to 1856 he conducted Indian affairs in such a vig- 
orous and uncompromising fashion that with him the work of 
Clive, Hastings, Wellesley, and Bentinck came to a culmina- 
tion. Sir William Hunter goes so far as to say: "He was the 
only one of the long list of the Governors-General for whom 
both the great services in India, civil and military, and also 
the non-official British public, felt a real and lasting enthu- 
siasm." His character was masterful, his personality excep- 
tionally forceful, his will imperious, his interest in India and 
its problems earnest, practical, and yet idealistic. It is no 
wonder that his accomplishments measure up to the promise 
of this young man of thirty-five who assumed the govern- 
ment in 1848. Dalhousie did three things for India; he ex- 
tended the frontiers to the position they now occupy, consoli- 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 205 

dated the control of the internal states, and revolutionized in 
a fashion almost too vigorous the economic, social, and com- 
mercial life of the country. 

Dalhousie had been in India but a few months when he was 
called on to settle the problem of the Punjab. The Sikhs 
showed themselves unwilling to remain independent and yet 
friendly to the British, who had adopted an attitude of "ex- 
perimental tolerance." The Sikh army was not yet con- 
vinced of its inability to defeat the British, and certain Sikh 
chieftains developed a strong nationalist feeling. The Sec- 
ond Sikh War broke out in 1849. In January the severe 
Battle of Chilianwala was fought, in which nearly twenty- 
five hundred men of the British army were killed or wounded 
while the Sikhs practically maintained their position. Gen- 
eral Gough retrieved this disaster in the next month at Gu- 
jerat, about fifty miles directly north of Lahore; the Sikh 
army was practically annihilated, and the Afghan forces of 
Dost Mohammed were driven into their mountain retreats. 
As a result of this victory Dalhousie annexed the whole of the 
Punjab. It seems to have been a wise move, as the natural 
boundary to the northwest was reached and the country was 
opened up to civilizing influences. The great justification of 
the annexation is to be found in the remarkable way in which 
the country was developed and the good will of the natives 
obtained. When the mutiny of 1857 occurred, the Punjab 
remained quiet; presumably another part of the old Mogul 
Empire had been made "happy." 

In 1852 Dalhousie dealt with Burma to the northeast in a 
similar manner. The First Burmese War under Lord Am- 
herst had not been a great success. 1 When the Burmese dis- 
regarded the treaty then made and interfered in unnecessary 
ways with the trade then set up, Dalhousie determined to 
complete the task started twenty-five years before, or, as he 
put it, take a "second bite of the cherry." In order to fore- 
stall any possible danger of defeat he superintended very 
carefully the military preparations, especially providing 
against the attacks that the damp climate would make on the 

* See p. 191. 



206 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

health of his army. The war was a success, but as the Court 
of Ava, far to the north, was unwilling to cede lower Burma, 
Dalhousie annexed it by proclamation in 1852. Independent 
Burma was thus shut off completely from the sea, and the 
coast down to the Malay Peninsula came into British posses- 
sion. The remarkable development of the country has as 
signally justified its accession as has that of the Punjab. 

Dalhousie's administration is noteworthy also for the 
strengthening of the British control of the various Indian 
states that had been allowed to exist in a feudatory relation 
to the Company. Some of these states were subject to seri- 
ous internal misrule, but the Company could not interfere 
without violating its agreements. Dalhousie applied his 
Doctrine of Lapse to the cases where the reigning ruler of a 
subject state died without natural heirs. * During his term of 
office some half a dozen native states were thus assimilated, 
the best known of which is Nagpur, a part of the old Maratha 
confederacy. In 1853 Dalhousie stated the case of Nagpur 
to the Directors in this style: "The case of Nagpur stands 
wholly without precedent. The question of the right of 
Hindu princes to adopt is not raised at all by recent events 
at Nagpur, for the Raja had died and had deliberately ab- 
stained from adopting an heir. His widow has adopted no 
successor. The State of Nagpur, conferred by the British 
government in 1818, on the Raja and his heirs, has reverted 
to the British government on the death of the Raja without 
any heir." 2 The Governor-General also allowed the lapse of 
a number of pensions to old royal families on the extinction of 
the direct male line, thus simplifying the complex demands 
on the Company's treasury. In this way the pensions of the 
former rulers of the Carnatic, of Tanjore, and of the Peshwa 
died with their holders. 

Probably Dalhousie's most notable achievement in the 
internal affairs of India was the annexation of Oudh. It will 

1 In the Indian states it was the custom to adopt an heir if there were no 
children to succeed to the throne. Dalhousie held that where the natural suc- 
cessor did not exist the sovereignty reverted to the paramount British Govern-? 
ment. It is similar to the European feudal practice of escheat. 

2 Muir, The Making of British India, p. 352, 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 207 

be recalled that this district, next northwest of Bengal in the 
Ganges valley, had been left under its native ruler. From 
the beginning of the century serious misrule had been com- 
mon. Bentinck had warned the King that " unless his 
territories were governed upon other principles than those 
hitherto followed, and the prosperity of the people made the 
principal object of his administration," the British would 
take over the " entire management of the country." Lord 
Hardinge had issued a similar warning in 1847. In 1856 
Dalhousie summed up the case in these words: "The time 
has come when inaction on the part of the British govern- 
ment, in relation to the affairs of the Kingdom of Oudh, 
can now be no longer justified, and is already convert- 
ing our responsibility into guilt." Dalhousie's wish that the 
King retain his royal title and rank, but vest the civil and 
military administration in the Company, did not appeal to 
the Directors; they decided on the more extreme course of 
annexation. Accordingly, just on the eve of his departure 
for home in 1856, Dalhousie annexed Oudh, adding a fourth 
to the three great annexations of the Punjab, Burma, and 
Nagpur. The lands he handed to his successor in 1856 were 
between a third and a half larger than those he had received 
in 1848. 

Dalhousie's place among the makers of modern India rests 
not only on his foreign policy, but also on his tireless labor for 
improving the condition of the country by the introduction 
of western civilization. He was a Wellesley and a Bentinck 
in one. Dalhousie was the originator of the Indian railway 
system. In 1850 the first sod was turned, and six years later 
when he sailed for England thousands of miles of railway 
were in operation or under construction. The country was 
thus opened up and products found their way more easily 
to the outside world while capital came in for the develop- 
ment of the country. During the six years of his rule ex- 
ports nearly doubled and imports increased two and a half 
times. Along with the railway he introduced the telegraph. 
This was done under tremendous odds, not the least being 
the native aversion to the newfangled invention. When 



208 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Lord Dalhousie arrived in India the postal service was be- 
yond the use of the native population because of high charges 
and, in addition, the service was very corrupt. In 1853 he 
established the modern postal system, a halfpenny post for 
all India. 

His administration also saw the organization of the edu- 
cational system on its broad basis of the vernacular lan- 
guages and an orderly gradation of the various schools cul- 
minating in the three universities created by an Act of 1857. 
The Governor-General's interests were multifarious indeed. 
Even scientific forestry received a place among his interests. 
The war against sati, thagi, infanticide, and dacoity was 
carried on by him in a more relentless manner than by any of 
his predecessors. 

THE MUTINY 

In 1857 occurred the terrible Mutiny which brings this 
period to a natural close, for it was followed by the transfer 
of India to the Crown. There has been much discussion and 
considerable disagreement as to the causes of this sanguinary 
uprising. There can be no doubt, however, that the rapid 
Europeanization of the peninsula from the days of Bentinck, 
and especially under the ardent guidance of Dalhousie, had 
made the natives restless and fearful that their ancient stand- 
ards were no longer respected. The discontinuance of some 
large pensions, especially that of Nana Sahib, the adopted 
son of the last Peshwa, aroused much discontent, for this was 
the sop that reconciled many to British expansion. The 
great administrative changes inevitable in the districts an- 
nexed by Lord Dalhousie created distrust as well. In gen- 
eral, the political changes and social and financial reforms 
to which India had been subjected in the decades before the 
Mutiny, as well as the great economic movement so pro- 
foundly affecting the country, may be considered as back of 
the widespread response the Mutiny received among the 
natives. 

The Mutiny itself was a matter of the army. In the south 
the native castes serving in the British forces were very much 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 209 

mixed. The Bengal army, on the contrary, was recruited 
mainly from the Brahmins and Rajputs of the upper Ganges; 
it was, therefore, largely homogeneous and of the upper 
castes. In the military provision for India the proportion of 
natives to British was as six to one. The increase of new ad- 
ministrative positions following the annexations of new ter- 
ritories had tended to enhance this ratio. These upper- 
caste soldiers disliked foreign service — even service in Af- 
ghanistan — as they feared the loss of caste. Yet in 1856 
an Act had declared that no recruit should be taken for the 
army who would not be willing to serve wherever he was sent, 
possibly out of India, possibly over the seas. The spark 
that set the smouldering discontent of the Sepoys aflame was 
the blunder of the " greased cartridges." Rumor had it — 
and rightly — that the ammunition for the new Enfield 
rifles to be used by the Sepoy army consisted of cartridges 
that had been greased with the fat of cows and pigs. To the 
Hindu the former was sacred; to the Mohammedan the latter 
was unclean. 

The Mutiny began in May among the Sepoys stationed 
near Delhi. One of the first acts of the Sepoys was to pro- 
claim the Mogul representative Emperor of India. The re- 
volt soon spread beyond the great city to Oudh and Bengal, 
and to some extent into the northwestern provinces. In the 
Ganges valley especially there was great disorganization in 
the army and much rapine and murder, for the natives aimed 
at nothing less than the extermination of the British. 

The fate of Cawnpore is illustrative of the lot of many 
isolated garrisons. Not far from this city on the Ganges 
lived Nana Sahib, who hoped to be ruler of the Marathas 
with the termination of English rule. He directed the deter- 
mined native attack on Cawnpore which led to the surrender 
of the British. Although they had been granted a safe con- 
duct, they were massacred by the treacherous natives in a 
peculiarly atrocious manner; as the British embarked in 
boats they were fired on and only four survived in addition to 
the one hundred and twenty women and children reserved for 
a worse fate. Sir Henry Havelock, on reaching Cawnpore 



210 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

with his relief expedition, found that all the British survivors 
had been murdered. Leaving a small garrison he hastened on 
to the relief of Lucknow, some forty miles to the northeast. 
Here Sir Henry Lawrence had made careful provision, and 
the British held out until relief came in September, but this 
expedition led by Havelock and Outram only reached Luck- 
now after the death of its brave defender, Sir Henry Law- 
rence. Later it was necessary to send a second relief expedi- 
tion, commanded by Sir Colin Campbell, as the forces of 
Havelock and Outram proved insufficient. In the middle of 
September the city of Delhi was reoccupied, largely through 
the efforts of John Lawrence, the Governor of the Punjab. 
In spite of these achievements on the part of the British, 
much remained to be done. It was only with the middle of 
the next year that the Governor-General, Lord Canning, felt 
justified in proclaiming the country at peace. 1 

Immediately after this terrible revolt and its successful 
suppression, the great change took place by which the East 
India Company ceased to exist and India was brought nom- 
inally as well as actually under the Crown. The Company 
through John Stuart Mill made an able defense of its work, 
and expressed its reasons for the continuance of the former 
system. But at best divided authority was unwise. The 
new British Empire growing up in all parts of the world under 
the direct supervision of the Colonial Office seemed to justify 
a more direct relation to India as well. The Act of 1858 
simply completed the policy that had been furthered grad- 
ually by the well-known reconstructions of the Company's 
rights in 1773, 1784, 1813, 1833, and at other times. Hence- 
forth a Secretary of State for India was to have charge of 
Indian affairs in place of the President of the Board of Con- 
trol. The Governor-General became the Viceroy. Few 
changes were made in the administration of India. 

We have reviewed the manner in which the great Indian 
Empire was won. Many men of distinct ability and varying 

1 The English victories, especially the recapture of Delhi, were followed by 
acts of cruel and bitter revenge. Yet the Governor-General was derisively 
called "Clemency" Canning by an enraged British public, dissatisfied with 
his comparative leniency. 



COMPLETION OF BRITISH DOMINION IN INDIA 211 

ideals contributed to the expansion of the power of the Hon- 
ourable East India Company. The concern began its work 
as a commercial venture in 1600 and later expanded into a 
landholding and conquering organization of undreamed-of 
growth and dimensions. It is a fascinating development, 
and, if there are acts to condone, there are many to laud. If 
motives were not so lofty at all times as they should have 
been, the betterment of India was an undoubted outcome of 
the Company's work. Peace and prosperity had come to a 
country accustomed to intestine strife and foreign invasion. 
Yet the tasks set the British were not completed in 1858. In 
a later chapter we shall study the way in which Indian prog- 
ress has continued and the extent to which the political de- 
mands and economic needs of this great group of peoples 
have been answered in the last half-century. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
See the Bibliographies appended to chapters vi, vn, and xn. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE GROWTH OF CANADA 

1760-1867 

In 1759 Wolfe lost his life in the battle that resulted in the 
capture of Quebec. With the close of the war by the Peace 
of Paris in 1763 Canada was ceded to the British. We have 
found that it was perplexing to Chatham to decide whether 
to return Canada or Guadeloupe to the French. It is per- 
haps equally difficult for us to-day, as we consider the won- 
derful expansion of British North America, to appreciate 
Chatham's quandary. Nevertheless, the question was a se- 
rious one to England's prime minister, for, with the possession 
of Canada, a new sort of colonial situation was faced by the 
British Government. Formerly territories were increased 
largely by settlement. Jamaica and New York had been 
taken before this time, but they did not involve a settled pol- 
icy of expansion by conquest, j Canada seemed to present pe- 
culiar difficulties as a continental acquisition settled by in- 
habitants of another colonizing nation, which had already 
subjected a native population in a relatively high degree of 
development. To make the treatment of Canada still more 
difficult was the fact that it bordered on English possessions 
to the south where there was a decidedly advanced concep- 
tion of political rights. 

QUEBEC 

In 1763 a Royal Proclamation was issued establishing gov- 
ernments in the recently conquered American possessions. 
The " Government of Quebec" was about the size of the Que- 
bec of to-day. The continuance of the Roman Catholic re- 
ligion was provided for and a promise was made of political 
rights. There was provision, also, for the protection of the 
Indians and for the settlement of soldiers on the bounty 
lands. 

The new Governor was General Murray, In 1766 Mon- 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 213 

seigneur Briand was chosen, with the Governor's approval, as 
the new Catholic Archbishop of Quebec, an act that did much 
to reconcile the Canadians to British rule. The Govern- 
ment, notwithstanding, remained unsettled for some years in 
spite of the terms of the Proclamation. The difficulties that 
General Murray faced were great indeed. Baron Maseres, 
afterwards the Attorney-General of Quebec, expressed at 
this time his views on the " Expediency of Procuring an Act 
of Parliament for the Settlement of the Province of Quebec." 
He described the situation in the following manner: "Two 
nations are to be kept in peace and harmony, and moulded, 
as it were, into one, that are at present of opposite religions, 
ignorant of each other's language, and inclined in their affec- 
tions to different systems of law. The bulk of the inhab- 
itants are hitherto either French from old France, or native 
Canadians that speak only the French language, being, as it 
is thought, about ninety thousand souls, or, as the French rep- 
resent it in their Memorial, ten thousand heads of families. 
The rest of the inhabitants are natives of Great Britain or 
Ireland, or of the British Dominions in North America, and 
are at present only about six hundred souls. The French are 
almost uniformly Roman Catholics; there were only three 
Protestant families among them at the time of the conquest 
of the province. But what is more to be lamented is that 
they are violently bigoted to the Popish religion, and look 
upon all Protestants with an eye of detestation. . . . The 
French insist, not only upon a toleration of the public wor- 
ship, but upon a share in the administration of justice, and on 
a right, in common with the English, of being appointed to all 
the offices of the government. The English, on the contrary, 
affirm that the laws of England made against the Papists 
ought to be in force there, and consequently that the native 
Canadians, unless they think proper to turn Protestants, 
ought to be excluded from all those offices and various 
branches of power." x 
For a number of years the Government was "practically 

1 A. B. Keith, Select Documents illustrative of British Colonial History, i, 
12-13. 



214 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

chaotic." Had it not been for the enlightened common sense 
of Governor Murray and his successor, Guy Carleton, later 
Lord Dorchester, the conditions would have been serious. 
Carleton became the actual Governor in 1766, and during the 
next thirty years did more than any other man to shape and 
foster the development of this new British possession. Born 
in Ireland in 1724, he entered the army twenty-two years 
later, and by the opening of the Seven Years' War had be- 
come a lieutenant-colonel. Wolfe relied much on Carleton 
during the campaign against Quebec. After service at Belle 
Isle and Havana he came back to Quebec in 1766. Justice 
and impartiality as well as aristocratic reserve were prom- 
inent characteristics of Governor Carleton. He became con- 
vinced during the early years of his stay that "this country 
must to the end of time be peopled by the Canadian race." 
Accordingly, he advised in 1767 that the old Canadian laws 
be left entire, and that even feudal tenures be retained. 

In 1770 Carleton went to England, just as the troubles with 
the colonies to the south were growing. He did not return 
to Quebec until four years later, the year in which the fa- 
mous Quebec Act was passed. This settlement of the Cana- 
dian question came just at the time that Great Britain was 
legislating against the Massachusetts colony by acts that 
came to be known in America as the "Intolerable Acts." * 
The Quebec Act, coming as it did at this juncture and pro- 
viding for arrangements not agreeable to the revolting colo- 
nies, was included by them among their grievances. They 
felt that it had been designedly aimed at their liberties. In 
the "long train of abuses and usurpations" listed in the Dec- 
laration of Independence, reference is made to this Act as 
"abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring 
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and 
enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example 
and a fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule 
into these colonies." 

The Quebec Act provided in the first place for enlarged 
boundaries for the province. The Labrador coast was joined 

1 See p. 124. 



216 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

to Canada and lands west and southwest of the province, as 
defined in 1763, were placed under Carleton's administration. 
The territory north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi 
was included, "provided always, that nothing herein con- 
tained, relative to the Boundary of the Province of Quebec 
shall in anywise affect the boundaries of any other Colony." 
The expansion of the province seems to have been made to 
protect the Indians, and to join to Quebec that part of the 
back country that had been French in the days when Quebec 
was a French possession, and with which it had a convenient 
water connection. 

Another important provision of the Act dealt with religion. 
"For the more perfect Security and Ease of the Minds of the 
Inhabitants of the said Province" the free exercise of the 
"Religion of the Church of Rome" was permitted, subject to 
the King's supremacy. A simple oath of allegiance was sub- 
stituted for the elaborate one of Elizabeth. The "accus- 
tomed dues and rights" belonging to the Roman Catholic 
clergy were permitted. It is important to note that the Act 
provided also for the support of a Protestant clergy in the 
province. Civil matters were to be governed by the French 
law of Canada, but the criminal law of England was to be 
continued in the province as the inhabitants had "sensibly 
felt" its benefits from an experience of more than nine years. 
It was thought inexpedient to call an Assembly. A Legisla- 
tive Council of not more than twenty-three members was to 
be appointed by the King. The Council was not given the 
power of taxation, and its ordinances were subject to the 
royal veto. 

There has been much difference of opinion regarding this 
notable Act. It certainly fell short of the ideas of colonial 
rights held to the south. Chatham was opposed to it as anti- 
British. Yet it went far in improving the system of govern- 
ment in Canada, even though it was a compromise. The 
French Canadians seem to have regarded it as a good meas- 
ure, for they paid little heed to the American appeals to join 
the cause of independence. It perpetuated French law and 
custom within the British Empire. Had the British Govern- 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 217 

ment foreseen the growth of the later Dominion and its occu- 
pation by English-speaking people, it might well have under- 
taken the anglicizing of Canada in 1774. Certainly the 
chief difficulties the Dominion has faced have found their 
source in the traditional protection given to French customs, 
laws, and language; but, as we have seen, Carleton expected 
Canada to remain French. The independence of the thir- 
teen colonies in 1783 brought an altogether new situation 
into existence. 

CANADA AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

Carleton had hardly returned to Canada before the British 
colonies, which had been quarreling with the mother country 
for the past ten years, revolted. One of the first military acts 
of the American Revolution was the invasion of Canada. 
General Montgomery led an expedition north to Montreal, 
and Benedict Arnold penetrated the province through the 
valleys of the Kennebec and the Chaudiere. Carleton had 
sent troops to reinforce Gage at Boston, and found it difficult 
to meet the American attack. He was unable to defend Mont- 
real, which was occupied by the Americans, and he narrowly 
escaped capture in his retreat by water to Quebec. There 
the forces of Montgomery and Arnold joined in the siege. 
Carleton had but three hundred regulars at his command, 
but he proved himself sufficient for the situation. On the 
last day of the year 1775 the Americans unsuccessfully at- 
tacked the city; Montgomery fell dead as he was leading for- 
ward his men. 

The Americans had sent a delegation to Montreal to as- 
certain the character of the situation and bring the Cana- 
dians, if possible, into the conflict on the side of the Revo- 
lution. The commissioners, one of whom was Benjamin 
Franklin, were soon forced to return south when Carleton re- 
ceived reinforcements in the spring of 1776. By the end of 
that year the British had regained complete control of Can- 
ada. In the next year the British planned to subjugate the 
colonies by a comprehensive attack, including the occupation 
of Philadelphia, the control of the Hudson, and an attack 



218 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

from Canada. The Canadian expedition was in charge of 
Burgoyne, who had superseded Carleton as military leader 
by order of Lord Germain. There seems to have been a per- 
sonal grudge at the bottom of this change. Had Carleton 
been at the head of the expedition one may well believe that 
the disaster to the British arms at Saratoga might have been 
avoided. Conspicuous lack of generalship was shown by the 
British in this campaign — in fact, throughout the war — 
and it is possible, as an English writer has put it, that, had 
Carleton been in place of the "torpid Howe, the heavy 
Clinton or the light Burgoyne, there might have been a dif- 
ferent tale to tell." x 

Carleton resigned his governorship in 1777 and returned 
to England only after he had given every assistance to Bur- 
goyne that he as the Governor of Canada could give. He 
was succeeded by General Haldimand, a Swiss soldier of for- 
tune, who had served in the British army since 1754. He 
proved to be an excellent Governor for this war period. 
Haldimand held Carleton's point of view regarding the 
French Canadians, governing them justly and sympatheti- 
cally, if strongly. His administration, extending to 1784, in- 
cluded the critical years at the close of the war when Canada 
became the haven for Loyalists from the thirteen colonies. 
Shortly after the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, 
Carleton became Commander-in-Chief in America in place 
of Clinton; his duties were largely confined to the evacuation 
of the country with the coming of peace. 

The treatment of the American Loyalists was one of the 
most important matters that came up for settlement. As 
soon as the Americans avowed independence as their purpose, 
many of the colonists held back. Love for the British con- 
nection and a natural conservatism among official and prop- 
' ertied classes helped to make the number of Loyalists large. 
In New England they were in the minority, but in the Middle 
States probably a majority of the people were Loyalists or 
"pacifists." In the South, also, Loyalism was strong. Va- 
rious estimates have been made of the number of Loyalists; 
1 Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Canadian Question, p. 83. 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 219 

probably a third of the population would be a conservative 
figure. It will be evident, as a result of the strength of this 
class, that the Revolution was a civil war in a real sense. 
Bitterness of feeling reached such a great height that the 
winning side was not inclined to return lands to those who 
had sympathized with Great Britain. Ostracism — social, 
political, and commercial — was apt to be their lot. By the 
Treaty of 1783 the Americans promised there should be no 
lawful impediment to the recovery of debts, and Congress 
was to recommend to the States the return of confiscated 
property. In addition, future confiscations were to be for- 
bidden. Congress, unfortunately, was powerless and the pro- 
visions regarding the Loyalists remained largely inopera- 
tive. 

In consequence, there was a widespread emigration into 
Canada from the colonies that had recently won their inde- 
pendence, a movement in which Carleton played an impor- 
tant part. He delayed the evacuation of New York until 
ample provision was made for the departure of those who 
wished to live under the British flag. "He regarded it as a 
point of honor that no troops should embark until the last 
Loyalist who claimed his protection should be safely on board 
a British ship." Britain's care for the Loyalists was shown 
by its compensations for their losses. Five thousand claim- 
ants appealed for a money indemnity, and after lengthy in- 
quiry these Loyalists were granted over £3,000,000. 

The great majority of those who left the United States 
were compensated by lands in Canada and Nova Scotia. In 
1783 a large emigration took place to the latter province, the 
number that settled in the province being over twenty-eight 
thousand. The western part of Nova Scotia was separated 
in the next year under the name of New Brunswick, for the 
express purpose of furnishing a home for the Loyalists. The 
first Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick met in St. John 
in 1786, and of its twenty-six members, twenty- three were 
Loyalists. Its first Governor was Colonel Thomas Carleton, 
brother of Sir Guy Carleton. Some ten thousand refugees 
found homes in the St. Lawrence valley, where Montreal and 



mo THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the rich farming land to the south, known as the Eastern 
Townships, were the principal places of settlement. 

The great majority of the Loyalists, who emigrated over- 
land, went farther west and formed the nucleus for the later 
province of Upper Canada or Ontario. The immigrants 
settled in large numbers around Kingston (near the outlet of 
Lake Ontario), on. the Bay of Quinte, across from Niagara, 
and to the east of Detroit. The number of inhabitants in 
Upper Canada in 1791 was twenty-five thousand, and they 
were largely those whose enthusiasm for British rule and in- 
stitutions brought them across the boundary. An interest- 
ing part of this group were the Mohawk Indians, under their 
leader Joseph Brant (from whom Brantford was named). In 
the early years of the province the new settlers often endured 
great hardship. In 1789 it was decided at a council meeting 
in Quebec that the names of those who had adhered to the 
"unity of the empire" should be recorded and preserved "to 
the end that their posterity may be discriminated from future 
settlers." From this arose the name of United Empire Loy- 
alists or U.E. Loyalists as they are commonly and honorably 
known in Canada. This recognition but emphasizes their 
part in the making of Canada. With their coming a great 
impetus was given to the growth of the province, and a col- 
ony, formerly almost exclusively French, became strongly 
English-speaking. 

In 1786 Sir Guy Carleton — created in that year Lord 
Dorchester — became Governor of Canada for a second time, 
and he guided the development of British North America for 
the next ten years. His office was a larger one than formerly, 
as he was "Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Que- 
bec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick." His enlarged pow- 
ers were analogous to those granted about this time to the 
Governor of Bengal in India. l The chief interest in his sec- 
ond administration lies in the Constitutional change made in 
1791, by which Upper Canada was separated from the lower 
part of the province. 

The immigration of U.E. Loyalists in such numbers ren- 

1 See pp. 182 ff. 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 221 

dered the Quebec Act obsolete. The loss of the American 
colonies and the feeling on the part of many of the British 
settlers that the possessions left to Great Britain in North 
America should be joined to the mother country by bonds of 
affection made a reform of the Government of Canada es- 
sential. In addition there was much dissatisfaction with the 
former Act as an expression of British constitutional stand- 
ards. Burke spoke of it as a " measure dealt out by this 
country in its anger under the impulse of a passion that ill 
suited the purposes of wise legislation." In 1786 a petition 
signed by his " ancient and new subjects" was addressed to 
the King for a free constitution. The French Canadians 
presented a counter-petition, and the disbanded soldiers pre- 
sented one of their own for the creation of a separate district 
in the territory about Kingston, where there would be ex- 
emption from French tenures. Other petitions followed, and 
finally in 1788 Adam Lymburner, a Quebec merchant, went 
to Lond©n as the representative of the British inhabitants. 
Lord Dorchester tendered his advice by letter. In replying 
to a letter from Lord Sydney in 1788, he expressed his belief 
that a division of the province was by no means advisable 
at that time. He would have the western Loyalist counties 
under the control of a lieutenant-governor. 

UPPER AND LOWER CANADA 

Parliament acted under the lead of Pitt in 1791. The 
Constitutional Act of that year is chiefly remembered as 
dividing the colony into two provinces, Upper and Lower 
Canada. Each province was to have a Legislative Council 
and Assembly. The me'mbers of the Councils were appointed 
by the King; the assemblymen were selected by electors qual- 
ified to vote by ownership of property. The Roman Catholic 
religion was guaranteed permanently and the Established 
Church of England was endowed by the permanent appro- 
priation of one seventh of the uncleared Crown lands. These 
provisions were the cause of later religious controversy, as the 
two endowed churches were granted privileges and wealth 
that the Protestant Dissenters did not possess. The British 



222 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

system of land tenure was established in Upper Canada and 
made optional in the lower province. The British Parlia- 
ment was to impose no taxes but such as were necessary for 
the regulation of trade and commerce, and to guard against 
the abuse of this power such taxes as were levied were to be 
disposed of by the legislatures of each division. 

The separation of Canada into two parts was very impor- 
tant. Pitt expressed the purpose of the Act in introducing the 
bill: "This division, it was hoped, would put an end to the 
competition between the old French inhabitants and the new 
settlers from Britain or British colonies by which the prov- 
ince had been so long distracted." Unfortunately, the sepa- 
ration did not greatly improve the situation. The British 
in Quebec did not receive fair treatment. The divided ex- 
ecutive authority was unwise when the parts of British 
North America should have been bound closely together. 
Upper Canada was purely inland and dependent on the lower 
province in connection with trading regulations. To the 
racial and religious troubles there was added one more cause 
of friction, two provinces. It is significant that in 1806 the 
French Canadian newspaper, Le Canadien, appeared for 
the first time, having as its motto, "Nos institutions, notre 
langue et nos lois." 

The story of Canada during the first third of the nineteenth 
century can be briefly related. There was a long interim 
after the close of the Dorchester regime in 1796 and Governor 
Prescott's short term of three years before a new Governor- 
General was appointed. In 1807, when the troubles of Great 
Britain were many, Sir James Craig was appointed the head 
of the two provinces. Craig, who had been wounded at Bun- 
ker Hill, was a distinguished soldier, and the danger of war 
with the United States over the questions of impressment and 
trade led to the appointment of one who would be an ade- 
quate military leader in case of actual trouble. Before the ap- 
proaching war began, however, he retired in ill health. The 
chief act of his administration was the temporary suppres- 
sion of Le Canadien. He seems to have been responsible for 
an increase in the ill feeling existing between the two races. 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 223 

War opened with the United States in 1812. The desire 
for the conflict was strong in certain sections of the new na- 
tion to the south, and it was felt there that the capture of 
Canada might be expected as a result of its numerical inferi- 
ority, Britain's occupation in the Napoleonic struggle, and 
the internal troubles in Canada itself. Sir George Prevost 
was Commander-in-Chief and Governor-General in Canada 
with General Brock at the head of the Government of Upper 
Canada. American attempts to enter British territory were 
largely directed at the upper province, but the U.E. Loyal- 
ists proved a strong and patriotic defense. The Americans 
were not efficiently led and had no adequate war organiza- 
tion. In 1815 peace was signed and Canada was allowed to 
continue to develop its resources in an undisturbed way. 
Fortunately for the two countries, war has not occurred be- 
tween them since. The War of 1812 undoubtedly led to in- 
creased bitterness against the Americans — an animosity 
that found expression in a variety of ways throughout the 
century. The war was of great value in helping to unite the 
people of Canada by fusing them through a common interest. 
Racial elements were forgotten for the time being, and Cana- 
dians became more passionately attached to the Empire than 
before, if that were possible. 

Nevertheless,]with the end of the conflict the former causes 
of trouble revived. In Lower Canada there was friction be- 
tween the judges and the legislature. In Upper Canada ar- 
rears in pay as well as restrictions on American immigration 
caused ill feeling. Beyond these apparently petty matters lay 
the great cause of difficulty, the struggle between the Execu- 
tive and the Legislative Assembly. It found chief expression 
in the question of the budget, the Assembly asserting at 
times an altogether extreme right over the amount to be ex- 
pended. The Assembly in determining to dispose of public 
monies without the concurrence of the Council was exceeding 
even the privileges of the House of Commons in England. 
As time went on the tension in Quebec took on more and 
more of a racial character. The French in the province were 
led by Papineau who was so strengthened in the elections of 



224 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

1834 that the British in the province formed associations as a 
counter-measure. In that year the Assembly refused to fur- 
nish supplies, and demanded unconditional control of all the 
revenues, an elective Legislative Council, and better use of 
Crown patronage. 

In 1835 commissioners were sent to Canada to consider 
these grievances and find, if possible, a solution, but the dele- 
gation failed to accomplish anything. When in 1837 the 
British Parliament voted credits to meet the needs of the ad- 
ministration in Quebec, a rebellion broke out, with Papineau 
as its leader. The rebels were largely French Canadians, but 
there was also an English-speaking element among them. 
The center of the movement was the Richelieu district, 
where Dr. Wolfred Nelson was the leader. The rebellion 
never took on large proportions and never had any hope of 
success. The bulk of the French were kept faithful through 
the guidance of the Roman Catholic Church and the loyalty 
of most of the French Canadians of social and political stand- 
ing. As a result of the rebellion the constitution of Lower 
Canada was suspended and a second commission was sent 
out to investigate. Before dealing, however, with the work 
of Lord Durham's Commission it is necessary to relate the 
progress of events in Upper Canada. 

There the causes for dissatisfaction were not so numerous. 
The financial dispute was never so fierce as in the lower prov- 
ince; in 1831 the Assembly made permanent provision for 
the civil list and caused no difficulty over the judicial officers. 
There was more difference over the relations of the Legisla- 
tive Council and the Assembly. The latter wanted the 
former elective. The chief cause of the trouble in Upper 
Canada was the conservative, close-corporation nature of the 
Government, the so-called Family Compact. Executive, ju- 
dicial, and legislative prizes were monopolized by a govern- 
ing class that consisted largely of descendants of the U.E. 
Loyalist settlers of 1784, who felt that it had a sort of tradi- 
tional right to power. They were unwilling to grant privi- 
leges to newer immigrants and to more progressive men. 
Church matters were important also. The Act of 1791 en- 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 225 

dowed Protestantism, but that meant only the Established 
Church of England. The clergy reserves set aside for that 
church caused much ill feeling among other Protestant de- 
nominations who felt the discrimination to be unfair. Their 
great champion was the Reverend Egerton Ryerson, a Meth- 
odist minister of Loyalist descent. Through the paper of his 
denomination, The Christian Guardian, he delivered powerful 
attacks against the system of clergy reserves. 

The leader of the radical reform party was William Lyon 
Mackenzie, who, when Toronto was incorporated in 1834, be- 
came its first mayor. Through him and his friend, Joseph 
Hume, in Great Britain, a report of the conditions needing 
remedy was spread broadcast in the home country. In 1836 
the clergy-reserves question was reopened by the endowment 
of forty-two Anglican rectories by the authorization of the 
Lieutenant-Governor. In that same year elections which 
took place for the Legislative Assembly were so manipulated 
by the conservative group as to make it appear that the issue 
was loyalty to the British connection. The unfair way in 
which the progressive element had been treated resulted in 
open rebellion in 1837 under the lead of Mackenzie. The 
rising, though similar to that under Papineau, was even less 
effective. There was thorough loyalty in the province and 
no racial problem to complicate the issues. Mackenzie fled 
to the United States after ineffectual efforts to organize a 
successful revolt. His attempts to act against Canada from 
the American side of the border proved utterly abortive. 

RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT 

Early in 1838 Parliament suspended the constitution of 
Lower Canada and made temporary provision for its govern- 
ment by sending out a commission under Lord Durham, the 
son-in-law of Lord Grey of Reform Bill fame. Durham went 
to Canada in the spring of 1838, returning to England in the 
late autumn. His report appeared in the winter of 1838-39. 
Lord Durham was given great powers. He acted as an in- 
vestigator, while at the same time serving as Governor-in- 
Chief . He was not only the ruler of Lower Canada, but his 



226 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

jurisdiction also included Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, for there had been 
some trouble regarding the government in other parts of the 
British North American possessions as well as in Canada. 
As a matter of fact, Durham was concerned almost exclu- 
sively with Lower Canada, visiting Upper Canada for a pe- 
riod of only eleven days and the other British possessions not 
at all. Durham was a close friend of Sir William Moles- 
worth, and his principal assistants in the investigation were 
Charles Buller and Gibbon Wakefield, with all of whom we 
have become familiar in the study of the reviving colonial in- 
terest in Great Britain during this time. x Charles Buller was 
regarded for a time as the real author of the Report, but this 
is probably an incorrect way of thinking of his position. 
Lord Durham was a ''leading" man and quite capable of the 
colonial ideas expressed in the findings of the Commission. 

The Report dealt with every phase of the difficulties in 
Canada. Lower Canada, Upper Canada, the Maritime Prov- 
inces, and Newfoundland were considered in their political 
needs and Public Lands and Emigration were fully discussed 
as well. 2 Lord Durham advocated the reunion of Canada by 
the "complete amalgamation of peoples, races, languages and 
laws." His words describing the conditions in Lower Can- 
ada are famous: "I expected to find a contest between a 
government and a people : I found two nations warring in the 
bosom of a single state; I found a struggle not of principles 
but of races, and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt 
any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could first 
succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now sepa- 
rates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divi- 
sions of French and English." 

In addition to reunion he advocated responsible govern- 
ment for the reunited provinces as a means of terminating 
the animosity. It was the colonial ideal of the reformers of 
1830 applied to a particular part of the Empire. By respon- 

1 See chapter xi. 

2 The Report is found conveniently in the edition admirably edited by Sir 
Charles Lucas. 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 227 

sible government Durham meant not an increased measure 
of representation, but the mastery of their own affairs by the 
subjection of the Executive to the control of the elected As- 
sembly. He also drew a close distinction between local and 
imperial matters, limiting as far as possible the power of the 
Colonial Office. Lord Durham believed, contrary to the 
opinions of many in his day, that responsible government 
would be a means of binding the colonies more closely to the 
mother country. The Report also included the Wakefield 
system of colonization as adapted to Canadian conditions 
with recommendations that it was hoped would lead to a bet- 
ter distribution and a greater cultivation of the land. In 
addition, he advised that careful measures be taken for fos- 
tering and controlling emigration. 

These, in brief, were the recommendations of this very im- 
portant Report. Charles Buller told the House of Commons 
in 1839 that the Report would be "the text-book of the colo- 
nial reformer until it became the manual of the colonial gov- 
ernment of Great Britain." Its great significance for the 
growth of the British colonial Empire lies in its recommenda- 
tion of responsible government. Canada was to lead the 
way and other self-governing dominions were to follow until 
to-day there is a large measure of truth in calling the British 
Empire a Commonwealth of Nations. But the doctrine was 
"new wine" in 1840. Lord John Russell held the proposal 
to be utterly incompatible with the relations between the 
mother country and its colony. Gladstone said at the time 
that "responsible government meant nothing more than an 
independent legislature." The Quarterly Review could not 
comprehend this system of colonial connection; "To our un- 
derstanding it is absolute separation." Sir Charles Lucas, 
in his edition of the Report, truly speaks of it as " the corner- 
stone upon which a single and undivided British Empire 
should be reared to abiding strength." 

Lord Durham's recommendations were not entirely ac- 
cepted. He himself was subj ected to much wordy abuse, and 
when he died in 1840 he was apparently discredited. Poulett 
Thomson was appointed Governor-General to succeed Dur- 



228 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ham and proved a man well fitted to carry forward the work 
of conciliation and reconstruction in Canada. Shortly after 
he arrived in the colony, the Upper Canadian Legislature and 
the governing body of Lower Canada made evident their wish 
for reunion. As a consequence, the British Parliament passed 
an Act in 1840 reuniting the provinces. The members of the 
common Assembly were divided equally between the two 
provinces, in spite of the fact that Quebec had a somewhat 
larger population. The Governor and the members of the 
Council were to be appointed by the Crown, the assemblymen 
chosen by popular vote on a property qualification. The 
English language was to be used in the legislative records. 

Poulett Thomson — created Lord Sydenham in 1840 — 
convened the first parliament under the new Act in the follow- 
ing year at Kingston. The Assembly determined to have the 
matter of responsible government understood from the first. 
Therefore, resolutions on this important matter, not unlike 
a bill of rights, were passed by the first Assembly. The 
three resolutions stated the colonial wish for responsible self- 
government clearly, while duly recognizing the place of im- 
perial authority. 1 

Lord Sydenham died in 1841. After three brief adminis- 
trations, a notable Governor in the person of Lord Elgin di- 
rected with wisdom and conspicuous success Canadian affairs 
from 1847 to 1854. He was the son-in-law of Lord Durham. 
It was appropriate, therefore, that under his guidance re- 
sponsible government should have been definitely assured for 
the colony. He gave his support to the party of reform, and 
while reserving the right to veto measures he considered to be 
opposed to the interests of the Empire, he went the full 
length of permitting the parliamentary party leader to choose 
the ministers. It is significant that the first man to do this 
was a French Canadian, Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine. In 
fact, during Elgin's administration the French won back 
much of the position that appeared jeopardized by the Act of 
1840. The explanation of French influence is found partly 
in the desire to carry responsible government to its consistent 

1 The Resolutions are given in Keith's Select Documents. 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 229 

end and partly in the formation of factional groups among 
the British. 

Lord Elgin went so far as to accept a Rebellion Losses 
Bill, which indemnified the rebels of the late rebellion. It 
was strongly denounced by the Tories in the British House 
of Commons and by the same party in Canada. The battle- 
cry "No pay to rebels" aroused high opposition to this 
measure. It resulted in the burning of the Parliament 
buildings in Montreal in 1849 and in the abuse of the Gover- 
nor. On one occasion he was pelted with stones and rotten 
eggs and only escaped rough handling by retiring to his resi- 
dence, Monklands, by a circuitous route. 1 

In 1847 the Civil List was given over to the Canadian Gov- 
ernment. In 1854 the Seigniorial Tenure Act practically 
did away with the old system of land-holding. At the same 
time the clergy-reserve question was settled by the handing 
of this property over to the municipal corporations for secu- 
lar purposes. The same year was notable for a reciprocity 
treaty with the United States, the result of agitation that 
had, in addition, brought about the repeal of the British navi- 
gation laws, so hampering to Canadian commerce. 

CONFEDERATION 

By 1854 the Canadian Parliament had developed a num- 
ber of very notable men, whose efforts during the next dozen 
years were to be centered upon the problem of federation. 
The French were ably led by Sir Etienne Tache" and Sir 
George Cartier. Tache" was premier in 1856 and was the 
chairman of the historic meeting at Quebec in 1864. Cartier 
had taken a rebel's part in 1837, but later he became conserv- 
ative, and was one of the most important men in politics 
during the middle period of the century. It was by his ac- 
tive cooperation that seigniorial tenure had been abolished 
and the clergy reserves secularized. He also gave vigorous 

1 Keith's Select Documents (i, 179-90) give6 Lord Elgin's interesting account 
of the affair in a letter to Lord Grey. The Government which found Kingston 
too small removed to Montreal in 1844. In 1849 the Legislature decided to 
meet in Quebec and Toronto alternately for four-year periods. In 1858 Queen 
Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital. 



230 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

support to movements for the material improvement and 
educational development of Lower Canada. 

The man who held the corresponding place of leadership 
among the English-speaking inhabitants was Sir John A. 
Macdonald, one of the most notable of Canadian statesmen. 
In Parliament he rapidly rose to the leadership of the Con- 
servatives. He was interested, however, in reform, and was 
tolerant of the French. During the critical days before and 
after confederation, he and Cartier worked hand in hand. 
For most of the time from 1854 to 1873 their alliance enabled 
them to govern the country. The leader of the Radicals was 
George Brown. In 1844 he had established the Toronto 
Globe, a newspaper, which became a daily in 1853, and was 
used by him in powerfully influencing public opinion for re- 
form of every kind. He entered Parliament in 1851, and 
from that time on was leader of the Radicals or " Clear 
Grits," opposing privilege of all kinds, social, religious, and 
political. 

By 1860 political matters were at a deadlock, and chang- 
ing conditions in the population were demanding recognition. 
In 1840 Lower Canada, which had a larger population than 
the upper province, was represented by but half of the As- 
sembly. Twenty years later the situation was reversed and 
there were three hundred thousand more people in the upper 
province than in the lower. George Brown stood for the 
right of representation according to population. Cartier, as 
the champion of Quebec, opposed this, denying that the ex- 
cess population had any more right to consideration than so 
many codfish in the Bay of Gaspe\ Matters came to such a 
pass that no government could stay in office for any length 
of time — within two years five appeals were made to the 
country. Public business could not be administered under 
such conditions. Finally in 1864 George Brown proved his 
greatness by forming a coalition with Cartier and Macdonald 
for the purpose of finding a solution of their difficulties "by 
introducing the federal principle into Canada, coupled with 
such provisions as will permit the Maritime Provinces and 
the northwest territories to be incorporated into the same 
system of government." 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 231 

In the meantime the Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia, 
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) had been work- 
ing toward a similar end. Constitutional matters had been 
the chief cause of what trouble had occurred in the Maritime 
Provinces. Joseph Howe contributed more than any other 
Nova Scotian to the development and protection of respon- 
sible government in his province. In 1861, as leader of the 
Liberal Party, he sponsored and successfully presented a res- 
olution favoring the federation of the Maritime Provinces. 
In 1864, the head of the Conservative Ministry, Charles Tup- 
per, arranged a conference of delegates from the three prov- 
inces to consider federation at Charlottetown. The Cana- 
dian Government, on learning of this meeting, sent a delega- 
tion, including Macdonald, Brown, and Cartier, to meet with 
the conference. The result of the discussion was favorable 
to a larger confederation than that of the Maritime Provinces. 
Accordingly it was decided to hold another conference at 
Quebec to consider the question at greater length. 

The Quebec convention met October 10, 1864, on the 
call of Lord Monck, the Governor of Canada. Among the 
thirty-one men present were Macdonald, Brown, Cartier, 
Tache, and Tupper. Other influential members were Alex- 
ander Gait from Quebec, William McDougall and Alexander 
Campbell from Ontario, and Judge Gray and Leonard Tilley 
of New Brunswick. The members of this convention have 
become enshrined in Canadian history as the "Fathers of 
the Confederation." x The deliberations, under the chair- 
manship of Tache*, continued for eighteen days behind 
closed doors. The result of their work was seventy-two 
resolutions, which became the basis for the Act of Union. 
When the result of the convention's work was presented 
to the Canadian Parliament it passed by large majorities. 
Thereupon, Macdonald, Cartier, Brown, and Gait went to 
London in 1865 to confer with the home Government. Later 
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia signified their willingness 
to join the movement and a second committee went to Eng- 
land, including representatives from the Maritime Prov- 

1 The last of the "Fathers," Sir Charles Tupper, died in 1915. 



232 THE BRITISH EMPIRE v 

inces. They met in London in December of 1866 and 
framed an act for the union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and 
New Brunswick. It was passed by the British Parliament in 
1867 and became effective in Canada on July 1 of that year. 

The British North America Act, as it is usually known, 
gave the name "Dominion of Canada" to the confederation. 
Upper and Lower Canada became known as Ontario and 
Quebec. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland did not 
join. The latter is still a separate Dominion, but Prince Ed- 
ward Island followed its sister provinces in 1873. x The Do- 
minion Government was given control of all British posses- 
sions on the continent, and through the years additional prov- 
inces have been created out of what was then practically 
unoccupied territory. The working of the confederation can 
well be left until the recent development of Canada is consid- 
ered in a later chapter. Yet it has seemed wise to detail at 
some length the movement resulting in responsible govern- 
ment and confederation in Canada, for this Dominion served 
as the leader and the model in the extension of the principle 
of self-government to those parts of the Empire fitted to re- 
ceive it. As a result the great dominions have become al- 
most nations while remaining enthusiastic members of a 
group that loves the British connection. Or, as Sir John A. 
Macdonald put it in his famous speech of February, 1865, in 
which he presented the Quebec Resolutions to the Canadian 
Parliament: "The colonies are now in a transitional state. 
Gradually a different colonial system is being developed — 
and it will become year by year, less a case of dependence on 
our part, and of overruling protection on the part of the 
mother country, and more a case of a healthy and cordial al- 
liance. Instead of looking on us as a merely dependent col- 
ony, England will have in us a friendly nation — a subordi- 
nate but a powerful people." 2 

What a change from the days when Canada was taken 
from France one hundred years before! Then it consisted 
almost wholly of an alien people, less than one hundred thou- 
sand in number, located in a few weak settlements along the 

1 See pp. 405, 422 ff. 2 Keith's Select Documents, i, 324. 



THE GROWTH OF CANADA 1760-1867 233 

St. Lawrence River. New Brunswick and Ontario were un- 
settled. The two cities of Quebec and Montreal contained 
together but seventeen thousand people. There were but 
six hundred Englishmen in the colony. Gommerce, educa- 
tion, and industry were hampered by the French laws of the 
" ancien regime." On the other hand, the Dominion contained 
between three and four million people in 1867. Ontario 
was occupied by nearly a million and a half of inhabitants; 
Quebec had a little over a million. Montreal was a city 
of one hundred thousand people, Toronto of sixty thousand, 
and Quebec of fifty thousand. Industry had developed and 
commerce had grown by leaps and bounds, especially after 
the reciprocity treaty with the United States and the removal 
of the navigation laws. Since the days when John Molson 
operated the first steamer on the St. Lawrence in 1809, the 
navigation of that great waterway had been developed by an 
efficient system of canals. Already several thousand miles 
of railway were in existence in 1867, foreshadowing the ex- 
traordinary growth of transportation facilities so necessary 
to a country of Canada's character. 

Sir John A. Macdonald may well be pardoned for the op- 
timism with which he looked to the future in the days when 
he was so earnestly urging confederation. ' ' When this union 
takes place we will be at the outset no inconsiderable people. 
We find ourselves with a population approaching four millions 
of souls. Such a population in Europe would make a second 
or, at least, a third rate power. And with a rapidly increas- 
ing population — for I am satisfied that under this union our 
population will increase in a still greater ratio than before — 
with increased credit — with a higher position in the eyes of 
Europe — with the increased security we can offer to immi- 
grants — with all this, I am satisfied, that, great as has been 
our increase in the last twenty-five years . . . our future 
progress will be vastly greater. And when by means of this 
rapid increase, we become a nation of eight or nine millions 
of inhabitants, our alliance will be worthy of being sought by 
the great nations of the earth." 1 

1 Keith's Select Documents, i, 323-24. 



234 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

For the earlier history of the period covered in this chapter reference 
should be made to Sir Charles Lucas, A History of Canada, 1768-1812 (Ox- 
ford, 1909) ; A. G. Bradley, The Making of Canada (New York, 1908) ; Victor 
Coffin, The Province of Quebec and the Early American Revolution (Madi- 
son, Wis., 1896); C. H. Van Tyne, The Loyalists of the American Revo- 
lution (New York, 1902); A. G. Bradley, Lord Dorchester (Toronto, 1907); 
and Justin H. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony (2 vols., New 
York, 1907). For general accounts of the period see the volume by H. E. 
Egerton, Canada under British Rule (Oxford, 1917), in the "Historical Ge- 
ography of the British Colonies"; Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Cana- 
dian Question (London, 1891); Sir John G. Bourinot, Canada under British 
Rule, 1760-1900 (rev. ed., London, 1922); A. Wyatt Tilby, British North 
America, 1763-1867 (London, 1911); and O. D. Skelton, The Canadian Do- 
minion (New Haven, 1919). William Kingsford's History of Canada (10 
vols., London, 1887-97) treats in detail the years 1608-1841. A standard 
work in French is F. X. Garneau's Histoire du Canada (2 vols., 5th ed., 
1920). Lord Durham's Report is a vital document; the period immedi- 
ately following his investigation has been considered by J. L. Morison, 
British Supremacy and Canadian Self -Government, 1889-1854 (Glasgow, 
1919). In "The Makers of Canada" series, George R. Parkin has written 
a life of Sir John A. Macdonald (1909), and G. M. Wrong that of the Earl 
of Elgin (1905). A recent and valuable treatment of this and the follow- 
ing period in Canadian history is The Life and Times of Sir A. T. Gait, by 
O. D. Skelton (Toronto, 1920). 

The British North America Act with a full introduction is given in H. E. 
Egerton, Federations and Unions within the British Empire (Oxford, 1911), 
and the constitutional development of the colony in H. E. Egerton and 
W. L. Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development (London, 1907), and by 
G. M. Wrong, "The Constitutional Development of Canada," Royal Hist. 
Soc. Trans., 4th series, i, 236-53. See also Keith's Source-Book already 
noticed. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 

Thus far, in describing the growth of the British dominions, 
no reference has been made to Australia and New Zealand, 
two of the most conspicuous parts of the Greater Britain of 
to-day. Much has been said of India, and mention has been 
made of the beginnings of South Africa. But Australia and 
the islands forming the archipelago of New Zealand came to 
European knowledge late, and there was much less interest in 
them than in the more accessible and better known lands 
discovered during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

THE FINDING OF THE CONTINENT 

There are sufficient reasons for the delayed interest in 
Australia and its colonization. All the maritime nations of 
western Europe had been interested in the East Indies after 
Vasco da Gama discovered the way around Africa in 1497 
and Magellan that about South America in 1519. The mo- 
nopolization of the Far East by Spain and Portugal during 
the sixteenth century prevented any save occasional voyages 
by mariners of other nations. When the Dutch obtained the 
monopoly of the East Indian trade, they found the islands in 
their possession amply sufficient for exploitation. The Brit- 
ish turned to the development of trade in India as a field well 
known and of proved value. Added to all these reasons for 
disregarding Australia was the location of this southern 
island-continent. It was out of the way and would not be 
apt to be hit upon save by mariners blown from their regular 
courses to the Indies or except when a deliberate attempt 
was made to explore the southern seas. 

During the Age of Discovery there was a belief among map- 
makers that the southern hemisphere was occupied by an un- 
known continent. The idea that equal areas of land and 
water were necessary to make the balance and symmetry of 
the globe probably accounted for this belief. By the middle 



236 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of the sixteenth century, as shown in the French map of Jean 
Rotz, there was supposed to be a great body of land uncon- 
nected with Africa or Asia in the southern seas. The voy- 
age about Africa had proved that continent to be separated 
from this southern land and the growing knowledge of the 
East Indies seemed to indicate that this southern land might 
be a great archipelago. Terra Australis, therefore, was 
thought to stretch to the south and much farther to the east 
than it actually does, in order to fill in the great expanse of 
unmapped space in the southern Pacific. 

It was just at the opening of the seventeenth century that 
Torres, a Spanish navigator, sailed through the narrow 
strait separating Australia from New Guinea, which now 
bears his name; but, if he sighted Australia, he did not re- 
gard it as a continent. It was the Dutch who are responsible 
for the growing knowledge of Australia in the seventeenth 
century. With their monopoly of the East Indian trade this 
would be but natural. In 1616 Dirk Hartog accidentally 
touched the coast of Australia at its most westerly point, 
where Sharks Bay and Dirk Hartog Island are found on 
modern maps. The cape at the southwest corner of Austra- 
lia is known as Cape Leeuwin from Dutch explorations 
made at that spot in 1622. Nuyt's Archipelago in South 
Australia has received its name from a Dutch explorer who 
coasted along that shore in 1627. About the same time the 
Gulf of Carpentaria in the north became known under the 
name of the Dutch Governor then in the East Indies. 

The most famous of all the Dutch seamen in these waters 
was Abel Tasman. In 1642 Van Diemen, the Dutch Gov- 
ernor at Batavia, determined that the southern land should 
be found, and sent Tasman in search of it with such instruc- 
tions that, it was believed, he could not miss the continent. 
He went to Mauritius, thence south to the fortieth parallel, 
and then to the eastward. In due time he came to land 
which he named after Van Diemen, but which is now more 
appropriately called Tasmania. This island, one hundred 
and forty miles south of Australia, was not known by Tas- 
man to be an island and thus separate from the great land to 



238 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the north, for he sailed around its southern side in continuing 
his journey to the eastward. Not until one hundred years 
later did Europeans realize that Tasmania was an island. 

On continuing his voyage Tasman found the archipelago to 
which the name of New Zealand was given by the Dutch 
authorities. In 1643 he returned to Java by way of New 
Guinea. He had accomplished the remarkable exploit of 
sailing completely around Australia without once sighting its 
shores. In a second voyage two years later he continued his 
explorations by tracing some of the northern coast of the 
continent, and at that time the name of New Holland was 
given to Australia. It was not until the early days of the 
nineteenth century that Flinders, an English explorer, sug- 
gested the name by which the continent is now known "as 
being more agreeable to the ear [than Australis] and an as- 
similation to the names of the other great portions of the 
earth." 1 

The most notable of all the many voyages made in this 
part of the world, fruitful because it led to the colonization 
of the continent, was that of the famous Captain James Cook. 
He was in charge of the vessel taking astronomers to Tahiti 
to observe a transit of Venus in 1769. His instructions also 
included an order to search for the great South Land, which 
was still generally believed to be east of Australia and New 
Zealand. The first land that he sighted was New Zealand, 
to which Tasman had come one hundred and fifty years 
before from the other direction. Cook sailed through the 
strait which bears his name, separating the North Island 
from the South Island, and also circumnavigated the group. 
He next continued westward, but being driven north he 
sighted the Australian mainland instead of Tasmania, of 
which he was in search. On April 28, 1770, he anchored in a 
bay which he called Botany Bay on account of the "great 
quantity of plants found in this place." Captain Cook soon 
discovered a better anchorage three leagues north of Botany 
Bay, which he named Port Jackson; it is on this bay that 
Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, is located. When 

1 Swinburne, A Source Book of Australian History, p. 25. 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 239 

he had coasted north as far as Torres Strait, Captain Cook 
took possession of the land for England. The attractiveness 
of the name Botany Bay and the enthusiastic report of 
Australian conditions by Joseph Banks, a member of the 
Cook expedition, led to the growth of interest in the new 
possession. Before the end of the century the British had 
begun to occupy it. 

NEW SOUTH WALES 

Joseph Banks became an ardent advocate of Australian 
colonization. As President of the Royal Society he held an 
important place in British scientific circles. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that his description of Botany Bay should 
have had much influence. Nevertheless, had it not been for 
the Government's need in connection with the disposition of 
criminals, the sending of colonists might have been delayed 
for a long time. The independence of the thirteen American 
colonies stopped the transportation of criminals that had 
taken place, especially to the southern members of the group. 
An inquiry was made into the problem arising from the rap- 
idly congesting jails, and, as a result, an Act of Parliament 
was passed in 1783 authorizing the King in Council to fix 
places within or without the Empire where criminals could 
be sent. Joseph Banks suggested Botany Bay. But it was> 
not until 1788 that the first expedition reached Australia. 

Eleven vessels in all made up the first expedition. In the 
six transports there were about seven hundred and fifty 
criminals. On their arrival at Botany Bay the harbor and 
mainland, so much lauded by Banks, proved unfit for settle- 
ment. Captain Arthur Phillip, in charge of the expedition, 
went a few leagues north to Port Jackson, where he found a 
"suitable site in a cove of the finest harbor in the world," as 
he described it in his letter to Lord Sydney, the Colonial 
Secretary. He named the new settlement Sydney. The 
usual difficulties of a new colony faced Governor Phillip. 
Scurvy proved serious, and the wooded character of the land 
around Sydney made the clearing of the ground for grain- 
sowing a slow process. 



240 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Added to these ordinary anxieties was the further one of 
watching over a large number of convicts. Fresh supplies 
of prisoners were continually sent out so that new centers 
had to be started. Norfolk Island was used for that purpose, 
and along the coast and inland convict settlements were lo- 
cated. Discipline was a serious problem, since Phillip tried 
to use the criminals for labor. It must be borne in mind that 
all of the convicts were not by any means abandoned charac- 
ters. Many were political prisoners, for when rebellion broke 
out in Ireland in 1795 in connection with the French Revolu- 
tion, the Government used stern measures, sending out many 
Irish political agitators to Port Jackson, where they caused 
a deal of trouble. 1 Most of the convicts were sentenced for a 
term, usually of seven years. They then became free and 
were known as "Emancipists"; their entry into the free so- 
ciety of the colony naturally brought new problems to the 
Government. 

In addition to the sources of difficulty already noted, the 
early Governors of New South Wales were also faced with 
questions arising from the presence of a native population. 
The Australian aborigines were not so serious an obstacle to 
the white men as were the Maoris of New Zealand or the Red 
Indians of North America or the natives of India. Gover- 
nor Phillip, however, wrote back that they were far more 
numerous than they were supposed to be; he estimated that 
there were fifteen hundred in the district around Port Jack- 
son and Botany Bay. Mistreatment of the aborigines was 
inevitable and reprisals naturally followed. But the difficul- 
ties from this quarter never hindered to any extent the devel- 
opment of the Australian continent. 

It was to be expected that exploration would take place 
under the early Governors in order to find the resources of 
the coast and the country beyond the mountain ranges that 
rise rather abruptly from the eastern shore of the continent. 
Coal deposits were early discovered by some castaways to 
the south of Sydney. In 1797 a lieutenant, sent north to 
bring back some runaways, entered a river, hitherto unknown, 

: See p. 128, n. 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 241 

about a hundred miles north of Sydney. Valuable coal de- 
posits were found there and shortly afterwards the town of 
Newcastle was started on the Hunter River, whence large 
supplies of coal have been obtained ever since. 

An important discovery was made in 1797 by George Bass, 
who found that the coast south of Sydney, instead of con- 
tinuing to South Cape (the southern point of Tasmania), 
turned westward. He went as far as Western Port and be- 
came convinced that a strait separated Tasmania from the 
mainland; it received the name of Bass Strait. With Mat- 
thew Flinders he made a careful survey of the coast of Tas- 
mania in 1798. Later Flinders, in the ship Investigator, 
mapped out the whole of the southern and eastern shores of 
Australia. As noted above, it was he who suggested the 
name of Australia for the continent. 

While on this voyage of exploration, Flinders met a 
French expedition under Captain Baudin, which was also ex- 
ploring the new continent. The place where they met be- 
came known as " Encounter Bay"; it is located south of Ade- 
laide on the coast of South Australia. Although Baudin had 
named this shore "Terre Napoleon," it is not clear that Na- 
poleon was intent upon building up a colonial empire in this 
new quarter of the globe. At any rate, the British had ob- 
tained possession by earlier exploration and settlement. In 
two other instances the British but just forestalled the 
French in Australasia. A fortnight after Governor Phillip 
arrived at Port Jackson in 1788 the ships of the unfortunate 
La Perouse 1 appeared at the same place. It is interesting to 
note that some years later, when the French were eager to oc- 
cupy New Zealand, they were again anticipated by the British. 
It was owing in no small part to the energy and the command- 
ing sea-position of the British after the decisive Napoleonic 

1 This famous French navigator was sent out by his Government in 1785 to 
enlarge the European knowledge of the Pacific. Much valuable work was done 
before the expedition stopped at Botany Bay in 1788. The movements of La 
Perouse and his companions after their departure from Botany Bay are unknown. 
The French Government offered liberal rewards in order to ascertain either 
the whereabouts of the expedition or the cause of its destruction. Half a cen- 
tury elapsed before it was definitely established that the expedition was ship-, 
wrecked, with the loss of all on board, near the New Hebrides. 



242 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

wars that the islands of New Zealand and the whole conti- 
nent of Australia became completely British, Had Australia 
been opened for settlement half a century or a century earlier, 
it is not at all improbable that it might have been divided 
among the European powers, as were India and North Amer- 
ica, and have been the scene of colonial conflicts. 

The interior of the continent was especially difficult of ac- 
cess from the east coast, for the mountains, rising rapidly 
from the shore, form an effective barrier. In the earlier days 
it was regarded as fortunate, since the convicts could not get 
away by escaping to the interior. During the governorship 
of Macquarie (1810-21) it became necessary to expand in or- 
der that new territories for stock-raising might be included in 
the colony. In 1813 the explorer, Blaxland, crossing the Blue 
Mountains that had so effectively hemmed in the coastal set- 
tlements, found beyond an abundance of fertile land, which 
was named the "Bathurst Plains." It was particularly for- 
tunate for the colony that larger grazing lands were dis- 
covered, as it made possible the development of the wool 
industry. The introduction of sheep was made by John Mac- 
arthur, an officer of the New South Wales Corps. In 1797 
he obtained from the Cape of Good Hope some fine "woolled 
sheep of the Spanish breed." Sheep-raising rapidly devel- 
oped ; in 1825 there were twenty thousand sheep in the colony. 
Soon it became the chief industry, and at the present time it 
has increased even beyond the proportions Macarthur fore- 
saw. The production of raw wool in large quantities came 
at an opportune time, for it furnished an abundance of ma- 
terial from one of Britain's own colonies for its growing textile 
industries. An indefinite expansion of this phase of the cloth 
industry became possible, with a more secure lead to Great 
Britain in its industrial development in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

During the second quarter of the century the knowledge of 
the back-country was greatly increased by the journeys of 
daring explorers. The interior of what is now New South 
Wales and Victoria was revealed by the expedition of Hume 
and Hovell. Stuart wandered over the stretches beyond 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 243 

the Bathurst Plains, where it was thought that there was 
a great inland sea; it proved to be a desert instead. The 
daring journey of this same intrepid explorer overland and 
down the basin of the Murray River made known a part 
of the country that was to prove of great value. The center 
of the continent remained an unsolved mystery until much 
later. But sufficient information was in the possession of the 
British early in the century to make possible the development 
of vigorous offshoots of the mother colony at Sydney. 

TASMANIA 

Tasmania — or Van Diemen's Land as it was known until 
1853 — was the first district far from Sydney to be developed 
on a large scale. In 1804 — six years after Tasmania was 
found to be an island — a convict settlement was started in 
the southern part at Hobart when Captain Collins brought 
four hundred criminals from England. In the same year set- 
tlers from Sydney began life in the northern part of the is- 
land. Agricultural and pastoral pursuits developed very 
rapidly; by 1821 fourteen thousand acres were under cultiva- 
tion. Sheep from Macarthur's flocks were introduced and 
Tasmania was found especially fitted for the production of 
fine wool. In 1821 there were over one hundred and eighty 
thousand sheep on its pastures. 

The greatest hindrance to the growth of the colony was 
this introduction of convicts. As Sydney grew tired of the 
evils of transportation, the worst criminals were sent to Tas- 
mania, where escaped convicts by their bushranging made 
life miserable for the free settlers. In 1821 Macquarie Har- 
bor, on the west coast, was set aside for those convicts who 
were so incorrigible as to be untrustworthy in assigned serv- 
ice or government-work gangs. When free settlers came to 
this part of the island the prison was removed to Port Arthur 
on the Tasman Peninsula. Colonel George Arthur, who was 
Lieutenant-Governor from 1824 to 1836, ruled with an iron 
hand and brought a large measure of order into the island. 
He was disliked, nevertheless, by the free settlers, as he 
firmly believed that Tasmania should be and should remain 
primarily a convict settlement. 



244 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

It was at this time also that trouble occurred with the abo- 
rigines of Tasmania. A fruitless attempt was made to herd 
them into one part of their island home. Later they were in- 
duced to settle on a small island off the north coast. But 
confinement was not congenial to their wild natures and the 
last of the aborigines died in 1876. We have here a signal il- 
lustration of the way Europeans, in their eagerness to exploit 
new lands the world over, have too often ruthlessly pushed 
aside weak and helpless peoples. 

After Governor Arthur's time convicts came in greater 
numbers than ever, for the mainland was freed from trans- 
portation in 1840. Sir John Franklin, the next Governor, 
but better known as an Arctic explorer, tried to reform the 
convicts by mildness. By that time half the adult male pop- 
ulation were criminals. It was but natural that the free set- 
tlers should make earnest protests against the continuance of 
transportation. At last, when in 1846 the home Govern- 
ment decided to remove the worst cases from Norfolk Island 
to Tasmania, the Tasmanian settlers rose in revolt against 
Governor Wilmot, driving him from the colony. Transpor- 
tation was finally abolished in 1853. 

VICTORIA AND QUEENSLAND 

Victoria, the state of Australia occupying the southeast 
corner of the continent, had its beginnings in settlements on 
Port Phillip Bay. As we have found, Hume and Ho veil had 
explored the interior by an overland journey from New 
South Wales. It was not until ten years later that the real 
beginnings of Victoria were made at Port Phillip by John 
Batman. He formed the Port Phillip Association in Tas- 
mania, and proceeded to purchase large tracts of excellent 
land from the aborigines. When he returned to Tasmania to 
persuade Governor Arthur to confirm the purchase, another 
resident of the island, by the name of Fawkner, brought a 
party of settlers to Port Phillip. Out of the efforts of Bat- 
man developed the settlement of Geelong; Fawkner and his 
followers were the founders of Melbourne. The Governor of 
New South Wales claimed jurisdiction over the new colony, 
and it became subordinate to the ruler at Sydney. 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 245 

Port Phillip developed very rapidly, as there was an abun- 
dance of fine grazing land along the coast, while Gippsland 
and the interior districts afforded unlimited opportunities for 
growth. The history of the colony was uneventful during 
these early days. The only serious difficulty it found was in 
being governed from Sydney. In 1840 the Government of 
Victoria was separated from New South Wales for land pur- 
poses, but the colony was still a part of New South Wales po- 
litically. In 1842 the movement for separation began. It 
was found to be useless to elect to the Council at Sydney men 
from Melbourne, who would go there only to be outvoted. 
Accordingly, the Port Phillip colony elected to the Sydney 
Council, as their representative, Earl Grey, the Secretary for 
the Colonies in the home Government. This unique pro- 
ceeding accentuated their demands, and they were separated 
from New South Wales in 1851. This same year saw the dis- 
covery of gold in the colony. Almost overnight the hitherto 
insignificant settlement became one of the most discussed 
places in the world. 

Queensland, the state north of New South Wales, lies 
about Moreton Bay, on which Brisbane, the present capital, 
is located. Moreton Bay was made a convict settlement in 
1826. Brisbane for fourteen years was nothing but a govern- 
ment station. The sheep-owners of New South Wales, how- 
ever, were pushing north for new pasturage, and in their 
search they came upon the extensive Darling Downs just 
back of Brisbane. With the abolition of transportation in 
1840, Brisbane became the port for the sheep-raisers of the 
interior. It developed rapidly as a free man's settlement, but 
it was not until 1859 that Queensland was separated from 
the mother colony. 

WESTERN AUSTRALIA 

Western Australia was so far removed from Sydney that 
it never came under its jurisdiction. Ever since the days of 
Dirk Hartog it had not been regarded as a favorable part of 
the continent for European occupation, owing to the lack of 
good harbors, water supply, and rich soil. In 1827 Captain 



246 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Stirling, who was exploring the coast of Western Australia, 
was especially attracted by the coast and land near the Swan 
River, and sent home a very enthusiastic account of its pos- 
sibilities. He was also impressed with the need of occupy- 
ing the coast in order to prevent other nations from taking 
it. In fact, some convict settlements, notably the one at Al- 
bany east of Cape Leeuwin, had been recently established to 
forestall the French occupation of this part of the continent. 
An offer was made to the Government by a body of British 
capitalists, of whom the most prominent was Thomas Peel, 
to colonize the Swan River district. They wanted four mil- 
lion acres of land and agreed to send one hundred thousand 
settlers to the Swan River within four years. The Govern- 
ment, however, limited the grant and so formulated the plans 
that there would be no public expense. Settlers were to re- 
ceive grants at the rate of forty acres for every three pounds 
invested in capital. 1 The Government put Captain Stirling 
in command of the colony and paid his salary by the grant of 
one hundred thousand acres of land. 

In 1829 the first settlers arrived at the Swan River, and it 
was not long before there were four thousand free inhabit- 
ants in Western Australia. But the colony did not prosper. 
The settlers were given grants of land that were altogether 
too large. And, to make matters worse, the largest land- 
owners were given first choice, which meant that Perth and 
Fremantle were surrounded by enormous estates. Much of 
the soil remained uncultivated owing to the scarcity of labor; 
there were no convicts and land was so cheap that everybody 
who wanted it had it. In 1832 the population dropped to 
fifteen hundred. As a result of this unfortunate beginning 
the colony received a bad name. As late as 1849 there were 
less than five thousand people in this part of the continent. 
During all this time the Swan River settlement had no con- 
victs. But in 1849 the landowners requested that such labor 
be sent them. Immediately the situation improved, and in 

1 "One man at least brought a seventy-guinea piano, landed it on the beach 
at Fremantle, got his order for nine hundred and eighty acres on the strength 
of it, and then left it to rot on the sand.". The British Empire, Past, Present, 
and Future, p. 353. 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 247 

ten years the population had increased to fifteen thousand. 
The transportation of convicts was introduced into Western 
Australia at a time when the other Australian colonies were 
trying to rid themselves of this incubus. Western Australia, 
however, paid the penalty for its prosperity, for when repre- 
sentative institutions were granted to the other colonies in 
1850, it was not included. Not until forty years later did 
this most backward of the Australian settlements receive 
representative institutions. 

SOUTH ATJSTKALIA 

South Australia had been explored by way of the Murray 
River in 1829 and 1830. When the failure of the Swan 
River colony made Englishmen as a whole pessimistic of col- 
onizing efforts, Gibbon Wakefield pressed for a further trial 
on the basis of systematic colonization. By this plan he 
hoped to avoid the dangers met by the Swan River colony 
and encountered at that time in eastern Australian groups 
where transportation was still prevalent. In 1829 Wake- 
field published his famous Letter from Sydney. It has already 
been noted that his contribution to colonization was on the 
two problems of land and labor. He would make land of 
sufficient price to prevent every one from becoming an owner. 
Thus a body of laborers would be produced. In addition, 
Wakefield desired the price to be within reasonable limits 
so that the laborer could look forward to ownership. This 
plan would furnish a body of free laborers to take the place 
of the unsatisfactory convict workmen. The scheme would 
tend to bring all the land that was purchased under immedi- 
ate cultivation. An emigration fund was to be formed from 
the proceeds, by which laborers were to be brought out free 
of cost. 1 

In 1832 the South Australian Land Company was organ- 
ized for the purpose of applying Wakefield's ideas to this un- 
occupied section of the southern continent. Although diffi- 
culties were met because a lack of sympathy was shown by 
the Colonial Office, the Company and an Association formed 

1 The Wakefield plan has been more fully treated in chapter xi. 



248 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

in 1833 effected the passage of an Act through Parliament in 
1834 authorizing settlement in South Australia. Commis- 
sioners were appointed who had powers to sell land at auction 
for not less than twelve shillings an acre, a price that was 
higher than in the neighboring settlements. When the popu- 
lation should reach fifty thousand, a constitution was to be 
granted to the colony. 

After considerable land had been sold and a body of emi- 
grants enlisted, the colony was established in 1836. Colonel 
Light, the Surveyor-General, chose with care the site of the 
capital city, Adelaide. Settlers came so fast that the sur- 
veying parties could not keep ahead of the demand for land. 
One of the early Governors, Gawler, felt?compelled to pro- 
ject public improvements in Adelaide to give employment to 
the laboring class. This was doubly bad, as it took them 
from the land where they were needed and piled up debts 
which the colony could ill afford. In the two years of 1839 
and 1840 Gawler had spent over £300,000. In spite of the 
departure of considerable numbers of immigrants to other 
parts of Australia, the population of the colony was fifteen 
thousand when Gawler was recalled in 1840. 

Captain George Grey, who had recently become known for 
his explorations in Australia, was hurried out to South Aus- 
tralia in the next year to remedy a situation that seemed crit- 
ical. The colony was bankrupt, and Captain Grey was given 
the strictest injunctions to retrench. His great object, as he 
put it himself, "was to give the labourers no inducement to 
remain in town, or upon public works; but to make them re- 
gard the obtaining of a situation with a settler as a most de- 
sirable event." The new Governor reduced relief works to a 
minimum and limited the amount of the daily wage paid by 
the Government. There was a loud protest raised among the 
laborers and by the press. Grey was burned in effigy and 
threatened with violence. The success of his work in reduc- 
ing expenditures and spreading the population over the rural 
districts was marked. In three years the annual govern- 
ment expenditure was lowered from £170,000 to £30,000. 
In 1840 two thirds of the population were in Adelaide. In 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 249 

1845 the situation was reversed; fourteen thousand people, 
two thirds of the colony's inhabitants, lived in the rural dis- 
tricts. In 1840 there were fewer than three thousand acres 
under cultivation; when Grey left in 1845, the cultivated 
land had increased tenfold. 

A fortunate discovery that helped, but does not wholly 
account for, the success of the Grey administration was the 
finding of copper in 1842 at Kapunda and Burra Burra, 
whence thousands of tons of copper were sent to Great 
Britain within a few years. It was not unnatural that the 
early hatred of Grey should have turned to admiration and 
gratitude as the colony prospered under his guidance. Lord 
John Russell spoke in the British Parliament of Grey's work 
in the highest terms: a In giving him the government of 
South Australia I gave him as difficult a problem of colonial 
government as could be committed to any man, and I must 
say after four or five years' experience of his administration, 
that he has solved the problem with a degree of energy and 
success which I could have hardly expected from any man." * 
In 1845 an admiring Government hastened George Grey off 
to New Zealand to adjust a situation as perplexing as he had 
faced in Australia. Later, as Sir George Grey, he became 
famous as a colonial Governor in South Africa as well. 

Four years after Grey's departure the population of South 
Australia passed the fifty-thousand mark. Thereupon the 
home Government redeemed its promise of a constitution. 
In 1851 the colony was granted representative institutions 
along with the other Australian colonies, Western Australia 
only excepted. 

A natural division point in Australian development is 
reached when a large measure of self-government was given 
the well-established colonies in 1851. The evolution of the 
constitution was not dissimilar to that of Canada. At first 
the rule had been predominantly military. The Governor 
was an autocrat indeed, but it was necessary where there was 
such a strong mixture of convicts and emancipists. The 
early judicial system did not provide for the exercise of tra- 

1 Henderson's Sir George Grey, p. 70. 



250 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ditional British liberties, as there were no juries and the judge 
was the accuser as well as the one who gave the decision. In 
1823 an imperial statute improved the judicial system, and 
provided for a Legislative Council for the Governor, which 
was appointed by the Colonial Office. 

An important step toward self-government was made in 
1842. Two years before, transportation to the eastern main- 
land of Australia was abolished. By an Act of Parliament in 
1842 New South Wales received some of the privileges that 
Lord Durham recommended in 1839 for Canada. A Legisla- 
tive Council was established, one third of whose members 
were appointed by the Crown and the remainder selected by 
the colonists. It was to have complete control of colonial rev- 
enue. We have found that Victoria, in spite of the fact that 
it had six members in the Council, objected to the cumber- 
some way in which it was governed. Earl Grey accord- 
ingly asked the British Board of Trade to investigate the sit- 
uation. In their report, presented in 1849, proposals were 
made that resulted in the Act of 1850. This Act separated 
Victoria from New South Wales and granted to these two 
and also to Tasmania and South Australia a large measure 
of self-government. The customs revenue was handed over 
to the colonies, the land revenue was to be used for local gov- 
ernment purposes, and the four colonies were empowered 
to make constitutions. Thus the privileges already won in 
Canada were extended to the southern continent. Queens- 
land became a separate colony in 1849, and Western Austra- 
lia was included under the privileges of the Act in 1890, * 

THE GOLD HUSH 

One more influential factor that profoundly modified the 
character of Australian development at the mid-century 
point remains to be presented. In 1851 E. H. Hargraves 
discovered gold on Summerhill Creek in New South Wales. 
He was a resident of that colony, who had gone to California 
when the gold rush occurred there in 1848. Hargraves was 

1 See pp. 384-86 for an account of the development of self-government in the 
Australian colonies. 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 251 

struck by the similarity of the land formation in the Sac- 
ramento valley to that which he had seen in New South 
Wales. He was so impressed by this similarity that, on re- 
turning to Australia in 1851, he sought and found gold where 
he expected it would be. By the middle of June the country 
about Bathurst and along the various branches of the Mac- 
quarie was thickly peopled with seekers for gold. It was not 
unnatural that enthusiasm was at a high pitch, for in July 
a squatter by the name of Kerr found a mass of virgin gold 
weighing one hundred pounds. The colony of Victoria was 
naturally eager to participate in this prosperity and offered 
a reward of £200 for the first gold discovered in that colony. 
The money was soon won. Not far northwest of Melbourne, 
gold was found in even greater quantity than in the north- 
ern colony. Rich deposits were brought to light, especially 
around Ballarat. 

The effect was far-reaching. "Many houses might be 
seen half finished for want of men to proceed with the work, 
though the owners and contractors were offering enormously 
high wages to any that would complete the work. The fields 
were left unsown, flocks of sheep were deserted by the shep- 
herds. . . . Even the very ' devils ' bolted from the newspaper 
offices; in short, the yellow fever seized on all classes of so- 
ciety." 1 From the neighboring colonies large numbers of 
immigrants rushed to the new gold fields. South Australia 
was in danger of depopulation, and eleven thousand men 
crossed from Tasmania in seven months. When the news 
reached the outside world, Australia became a land of prom- 
ise. Thousands came from the Californian fields. Britain 
and the continent sent large contingents. The numerous 
European revolutions of 1848, including the Chartist move- 
ment in England, had been largely failures, and the restless 
and dissatisfied radicals found a new field of interest. In 
five years the population of Victoria mounted from seventy 
thousand to three hundred thousand. 

The influence of the gold rush on future Australian devel- 
opment was very great. A peaceful, gradually evolving pas- 
1 Swinburne, Source Book of Australian History, pp. 141-42. 



252 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

toral country, with an almost unalloyed British population, 
was inundated with new elements. The population of the 
continent, which was about four hundred thousand in 1850, 
almost trebled in size in ten years. Many of the immigrants 
were not of the solid, steady sort, and were radicals politi- 
cally. The colony of Victoria, in particular, acquired a dif- 
ferent character from the colonies that remained pastoral in 
type. These additions to the population occurred just as the 
Australian settlements were in the act of making new consti- 
tutions. 

Tasmania and South Australia, as well as the two gold- 
producing colonies, profited by the movement, for they be- 
came places of investment for the newly-won gains and 
sources for large shipments of produce for the greatly in- 
creased population of Victoria and New South Wales. It 
is important to realize that the continent, which began as an 
out-of-the-way dumping ground for convicts at the close of 
the American Revolution, proved to be of enormous value as 
a result of the abundance of wool and gold. It meant that 
the future development of the continent was already on a 
sure basis. 

NEW ZEALAND 

The archipelago of New Zealand had been visited by Tas- 
man in 1642, but Captain Cook's later visit proved of more 
importance, as he determined the true character of the 
group. 

New Zealand is one of the most interesting parts of the 
British Empire. It consists of a group of islands, three of 
which are of importance, North Island, South Island, and 
Stewart Island. The group is shaped like the Italian penin- 
sula with the toe of the boot pointing toward the equator; it 
is about five sixths the size of the British Isles,. The North 
Island is very mountainous and at its northern extremity 
exceedingly broken in coastline. On a narrow isthmus in the 
north, so located as to have easy communication by sea both 
east and west, is Auckland. At the southern end of the is- 
land is the capital, Wellington. The South Island has even 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 253 

a higher mountain system, known as the " Southern Alps." 
This chain extends along the west side of South Island, 
reaching a height of over twelve thousand feet in Mount 
Cook. The descent to the sea is abrupt on the west, and in 
the southwest deeply indenting fiords have been formed. On 
the east are found the only extensive lowlands in New Zea- 
land — the Canterbury Plains. Nelson on Tasman Bay in 
the north, Christchurch on the east coast at the northern end 
of the Canterbury Plains, and Dunedin and Invercargill in 
the southeast are the principal cities. 1 

From the first the British faced great difficulty in occupy- 
ing this group of islands so congenial to the natives of the 
British Isles. They found an aboriginal population that had 
to be considered far more seriously than the inhabitants of 
Australia or Tasmania. The Maoris had reached a stage 
of civilization not unlike that of the barbarian tribes of 
northern Europe at the opening of the Middle Ages or of 
the North American Indians of the Six Nations group 
when the British began their settlements in America. The 
Maoris, who were almost exclusively in the North Island, 
had well-planned fortifications, and found in warfare their 
chief occupation. They possessed an elaborate mythology, 
emphasizing taboo and blood vengeance in their plan of life, 
and had practiced cannibalism. Yet Sir George Grey spoke 
highly of them: "They are in many respects a noble race. 
. . . They are splendid warriors, very eloquent, very sensible 
of praise, very proud; yet easily led. Indeed they have won 
all my feelings and sympathies in their favour by their con- 
duct to me." 2 

The earliest settlers of New Zealand were escaped convicts, 
whalers, shipwrecked sailors — the flotsam and jetsam of the 
Pacific. They were followed by a much better element, 
when the missionaries began their labors among the Maoris 
in 1814. Wesleyan and Catholic missions soon followed the 
representatives of the Church Missionary Society. The 
work of the missionaries seems to have been very successful, 
although it was retarded by the abuse of the natives by un- 
* See map on p. 237. ? Henderson, Sir George Grey, p, 77, 



254 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

principled white men and by the sale to the Maoris of liquor 
and firearms. In order to prevent lawlessness, the islands 
were put provisionally under New South Wales, much in the 
same way as Tasmania was subject to the mother colony. 

Extensive settlement did not begin until the " systematic" 
colonizers turned their attention to New Zealand. Little 
had come of a colonization society which Lord Durham had 
founded in 1825. Twelve years later Gibbon Wakefield was 
influential in forming the New Zealand Association, an organ- 
ization of which Lord Durham became a member. It was to 
be granted sovereignty over a part of New Zealand, with 
rights to purchase and resell land. The Church Missionary 
Society, however, was opposed to any scheme that would in- 
terfere with missionary labors. The opposition was so per- 
sistent that at last in 1839 the various groups interested in 
New Zealand colonization determined to go ahead without 
governmental permission. Gibbon Wakefield's brother, 
Colonel Wakefield, was sent out and began bargaining with 
natives for land; the first immigrants of the New Zealand 
Land Company arrived in January, 1840. 

As a result of this activity on the part of colonizers, the 
home Government was forced to act, in order that the settle- 
ment might be under imperial control. Therefore, in 1840 
Captain Hobson was sent out as Governor. It was made 
clear that no land purchases would be valid unless sanctioned 
by the Crown. One of Governor Hobson's first acts was to 
make a treaty with the Maoris; by the aid of the missionaries 
the famous Treaty of Waitangi was negotiated with the na- 
tives in February, 1840. In this agreement the full sover- 
eignty of the islands was ceded to Great Britain, which, in 
turn, granted the natives the standing of British subjects and 
the right to possess their lands as long as they wished to do so. 
In case of the sale of lands the Government was to exercise 
supervision over their disposal. Hobson established Auck- 
land in 1840 as the capital and proceeded to exercise the 
rights of the ordinary British governor. 

His task was a hard one. The New Zealand Company, 
which received its charter in 1841, had rights of purchase and 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 255 

an almost independent status. The early years of New Zea- 
land history were filled with difficulties that arose out of this 
dual system of occupation, for it became almost impossible to 
keep to the Treaty of Waitangi when a zealous land company 
was concerned in obtaining as many acres as possible. It 
should be said that the New Zealand Land Company did not 
remain the philanthropic organization that Gibbon Wake- 
field had dreamed of back in the early thirties. He himself 
repudiated their later methods when he declared that the 
"Company was founded by men with great souls and little 
pockets, and fell into the hands of men with little souls and 
great pockets." The Maoris, moreover, were unwilling to 
part with their land. An old Maori proverb had declared: 
"It is from food that a man's blood is formed, and it is land 
which grows his food and sustains him. Never part with 
your land." An additional source of trouble was the Maori 
system of land tenure. The land was not held in private 
ownership, but was the common property of the tribe. In 
purchasing native land it was difficult, on the one hand, to sat- 
isfy the numerous owners or, on the other, to convince the 
white purchaser that the disposition of a few beads and trin- 
kets to a single Maori did not satisfy the native idea of pur- 
chase. 

The New Zealand Company sent its first settlers to Port 
Nicholson in 1840. There, in the vicinity of the present 
town of Wellington, large tracts were "purchased" from the 
Maoris. Shortly afterwards, settlements were made at New 
Plymouth on the west coast of the North Island and also at 
Nelson on the upper end of South Island. Land troubles 
grew out of these "purchases," especially in connection with 
lands claimed by the Company on the Wairau River near 
Nelson. Colonel Wakefield was killed in an altercation with 
the natives concerning these lands. 

Most of the South Island up to this time had been left un- 
occupied. But after the establishment of the Free Church in 
Scotland a movement for sending emigrants to New Zealand 
was organized at Glasgow. In consequence, Scotch settlers 
established themselves in 1848 at, and in the neighborhood 



256 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of, Dunedin in the province of Otago. In 1849, the Church 
of England, through the Canterbury Association, purchased 
large tracts in the eastern plains of the South Island. 1 In 
the next year Christchurch was established and the neighbor- 
ing rich pastoral and agricultural district was occupied by 
Church of England immigrants. In 1851 the bankrupt New 
Zealand Land Company was dissolved, and the way was pre- 
pared for the unification and constitutional development of 
the archipelago. 2 

The record of early New Zealand growth would be incom- 
plete if no mention were made of Sir George Grey. We have 
found that he brought order into the recently established col- 
ony of South Australia, where he was Governor from 1841 to 
1845. In the latter year he was suddenly sent to New Zea- 
land at a critical moment in the relations between the British 
and the Maoris. There he labored earnestly from 1845 to 
1853 as Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand. In dealing 
with the Maoris he showed himself remarkably sympathetic, 
and endeavored to blot out by kindness and thoughtful con- 
sideration the righteous Maori indignation against the 
treacherous and unfair methods by which the Treaty of Wai- 
tangi had been systematically violated. For example, Grey 
found that one speculator had obtained over four thousand 
acres of land near Auckland for one horse, a saddle and bri- 
dle, five double-barreled guns, and a pair of trousers. The 
Governor proceeded to set much that was wrong to rights. 
The New Zealand Company found him a determined oppo- 
nent of their extensive schemes, and even church missiona- 
ries, who had acquired extensive grants, were subjected to his 
searching investigation. Sir George Grey studied the na- 
tives with great success. He learned how to win their loy- 

1 The Canterbury Association was an Anglican colonization society, in which 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Lyttelton, took a prominent part. The 
district in New Zealand, to which the Canterbury "pilgrims" came, was fit- 
tingly named Canterbury; the port was Lyttelton. 

2 Gibbon Wakefield left the New Zealand Land Company before its dissolu- 
tion, and was influential in the establishment of the Church of England colony 
on the Canterbury Plains. In 1853 he took up his residence in New Zealand, 
and was a member of the first Parliament of 1854. He died in Wellington in 
1862. 



THE EMPIRE IN AUSTRALASIA 257 

alty and greatly ministered to their growth in civilization and 
prosperity by restricting the sale of spirituous liquors and by 
preventing the distribution of arms and ammunition. He 
gave them a share in the administration of justice by organ- 
izing a native police, and afforded the Maoris ample protec- 
tion before the law. 

When the New Zealand Company was dissolved in 1851, 
there were six distinct settlements in the islands — Auckland, 
Wellington, and New Plymouth on the North Island and 
Nelson, Otago, and Canterbury on the South Island. In the 
next year they were united under a constitution. Governor 
Grey had recommended to the Colonial Office in 1851 that 
representative government be granted to New Zealand. The 
imperial Parliament responded with the Constitution Act of 
1852. Six provinces were formed, each with a Provincial 
Council and Superintendent. The franchise was limited by 
a property qualification. As the centralizing element, there 
was to be a Governor, a Legislative Council, and a House of 
Representatives. The Legislative Council was nominated 
by the Governor; the members of the House of Representa- 
tives were chosen by vote as for the Provincial Councils. 
The Governor was given considerable power; he only could 
initiate money bills, his approval was necessary in the choice 
of a speaker of the House of Representatives, and his ex- 
penses were definitely reserved. The Maoris were to be care- 
fully protected in the possession of their land. 

This provincial system existed until 1875. New provinces 
were created from time to time, and New Zealand assumed 
its place among British possessions as a group of loosely cen- 
tralized colonies with limited self-government. In 1852 
the white population of the islands was twenty-seven thou- 
sand; the Maoris numbered about twice that number. Fur- 
ther wars with the natives were to occur, and Sir George 
Grey was to be sent back to solve the troubled relations of 
native with white invader before the islands were to settle 
down to a peaceful development. In recent years, as we 
shall find in a later chapter, the growth of this "Britain of the 
South" has been as remarkable as that of any other part of 
the Empire. 



258 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

There are numerous histories of the southern continent and of New 
Zealand, of which the following should be mentioned: Edward Jenks, 
A History of the Australasian Colonies (Cambridge, 1912); J. D. Rogers, 
Australasia (Oxford, 1907); Ernest Scott, A Short History of Australia 
(Oxford, 1916); A. W. Jose, History of Australasia (6th ed., Sydney, 
1917); and A. Wyatt Tilby, Australasia 1688-1911 (London, 1912). 
Of these, the first is especially good on constitutional developments, 
the second for geographical matters. The third furnishes a very good 
survey by an Australian of the general development. R. C. Mills, The 
Colonization of Australia — referred to in the Bibliographical Note for 
chapter xi — treats fully of the early years of the southern continent, 
particularly of South Australia. For the French projects there is Ernest 
Scott, Terre Napoleon, A History of French Explorations and Projects in 
Australia (2d ed., London, 1911). G. C. Henderson's Sir George Grey, 
Pioneer of Empire in Southern Lands (London, 1907) is valuable; Sir 
George Grey's personal life and opinions are treated in an intimate manner 
in James Milne, The Romance of a Pro-Consul (London, 1911). A brief 
source-book of Australian history has been furnished by Gwendolen H. 
Swinburne, A Source Book of Australian History (London, 1919). For 
maps consult Bartholomew and Cramp, Australasian School Atlas (Oxford 
Press, 1915)., 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 

The southern end of the great African continent forms an 
important part of the British Empire. In 1910, by the 
Union of South Africa, the various geographical divisions 
were formed into a self-governing Dominion. Yet, strange to 
say, this youngest of the great Dominions is the oldest, so far 
as its discovery and settlement are concerned. 

For_two £ejituries it was under the rule of the Dutch, who 
stamped their standards of language and political and social 
life so strongly on South Africa that they remain very impor- 
tant factors to-day. No other great British Dominion has so 
large a population of non-British Europeans. As we shall 
find, the difficulties arising among the European stocks were 
not easily arranged. The French in Canada, for instance, 
have caused little trouble to the British when compared with 
the Boers in South Africa. In addition, the British have had 
to face a more serious native situation in Africa than any- 
where else in the great Dominions, with the exception of In- 
dia. In the Union the proportion of dark-skinned peoples to 
the Europeans is as four to one; of the European stock, the 
British element is in the minority. 

CAPE TOWN 

The discovery of South Africa was the result of Portu- 
guese activity. Under the inspiring guidance of Prince 
Henry the Navigator, daring seamen explored the African 
coast. In 1487 Bartholomew Diaz rounded the southern tip 
of the continent and named the stormy headland the "Cape 
of Tempests." But the Portuguese monarch, who saw the 
significance of the discovery, renamed it appropriately the 
"Cape of Good Hope," "for by this Cape shall we sail to In- 
dia." Vision became reality in 1497 when Vasco da Gama 
sailed around Africa on his way to Calicut. It was on this 
voyage that the Portuguese navigator anchored off the coast 



260 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of Natal on Christmas Day, and gave to the shore the name 
it has since retained. Strangely enough, the Portuguese did 
not occupy the Cape even as a landing-station, but after 
leaving St. Helena they usually went to Mozambique for the 
next stop. If compelled to make an intermediate landing, it 
was usually at Delagoa Bay in what is now Portuguese East 
Africa. 

When the Portuguese monopoly of East Indian trade gave 
way before Dutch and English competition in the seven- 
teenth century, the Cape country became of great impor- 
tance. The first fleet sent to the East by the English (in 
1591) stopped at the Cape. The English, however, did not 
long need the Cape as a place to break the long voyage to 
India, as they had obtained St. Helena by the middle of the 
seventeenth century. When the French developed an east- 
ern trade they used Madagascar and Mauritius as stopping- 
places. It fell to the Dutch to occupy the southern end of 
the African continent as a port of call and a victualing-sta- 
tion. The Dutch ships gradually came to use a convenient 
landing-place some thirty-five miles north of the Cape on the 
Atlantic coast known as " Table Bay." The outgoing and 
incoming fleets found it a refreshing break in the long voyage 
and not nearly so tempestuous as was generally supposed. 
Contrary to common belief, the natives proved friendly. 
Fresh meat could be obtained for a few trinkets, and letters 
could be left for other ships that were to stop at the Bay. 

The impetus to a definite settlement was given by the 
wreck of a Dutch ship, the Haarlem, at Table Bay in 1648. 
After a five months' sojourn the survivors were rescued by 
the homeward-bound fleet. During their stay they had 
found the land fertile, and on their return to Holland their 
enthusiastic statements of the advantages of the station led 
to its occupation by the. Dutch East India Company. An 
expedition of one hundred men landed at Table Bay in 1652. 
A fort was constructed and accommodations prepared for 
invalided soldiers and sailors. Early advantage was taken 
of the fertility of the soil about Cape Town for providing 
vegetables for the passing ships. The great yajue of a vict- 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 261 

ualing-station in those days was the opportunity it gave to 
obtain fresh meat and green vegetables. The great scourge 
of life on the sea was scurvy, a disease whose ravages are 
almost unbelievable. 1 

The first step toward colonization was taken in 1657. 
Nine men left the Company's service in that year and settled 
just back of Cape Town. These ' ' free burghers " or " boers ' ' 
were given tools and seeds for their farms. They were ob- 
ligated to offer their produce first to the Company; after the 
Company had purchased all that it desired they might then 
sell to foreigners. If cattle were purchased from the natives 
they could be disposed of only to the Company. The mo- 
nopoly held by this great concern, both of the produce and of 
its disposition, illustrates the type of government for most of 
the Dutch period. For the greater part of the time before 
the British occupation the narrowly paternalistic monopoly 
of the Company was the system under which Cape Town and 
its developing environs were ruled. 

THE NATIVES 

As soon as the settlement became more than a stopping- 
place for East Indian fleets, contact with the natives was in- 
evitable. There are three distinct native races in the terri- 
tory where British South Africa now extends, the Bushmen, 
the Hottentots, and the Bantu. The Bushmen were the 
aborigines. They are a yellow-skinned people and short in 
stature. In a low stage of civilization, they had no organized 
form of government, were nomadic, did not work the soil, 
nor keep herds of cattle. They lived in the bush on the nat- 
ural products of the ground and by hunting with their poi- 
soned arrows. At the time that the Europeans came to the 
continent the Bushmen were located in the less desirable 
parts, as they had already succumbed to a stronger race. 
The Europeans were never seriously troubled by this people, 
for they had little sense of property. 

1 For example, in 1695 a fleet of eleven ships arrived at Cape Town with 678 
men so ill that they could not walk. Two years before, three Dutch ships had 
lost 500 men by scurvy before the vessels reached Cape Town on the outward 
voyage. 



262 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

It was different with the Hottentots, the ruling people of 
South Africa when the Cape was settled. Until the opening 
of the nineteenth century they were the only important na- 
tive group in touch with the expanding European colony. 
The Hottentot is taller than the Bushman and dark-skinned. 
He is higher in the scale of civilization, for, although nomadic, 
the race was formed into definite tribal groups under chiefs. 
They cultivated the soil and kept herds of cattle. For an in- 
definitely long period before the white man came, the Hotten- 
tots seem to have warred with the Bushmen and to have 
mingled racially with their more primitive enemies. It is 
possible that the difference between the Hottentot and the 
true negro type may be due to a cross between the Hotten- 
tots and the Bushmen. The Hottentots, because of their 
sense of property and their large flocks and herds, came into 
conflict with the Europeans in a very real way. Yet they 
offered little serious resistance, because of the lack of mili- 
tary organization and an incapacity for sustained war. 
They were located along the coasts and in the vicinity of the 
Orange River. 

When European occupation extended eastward and north- 
ward beyond the home of the Hottentots, the settlers came 
into contact with a third native race known to ethnologists as 
the Bantu. Most of Africa south of the equator is occupied 
by tribes of this group, which is regarded as the true negro 
type. To the colonizing British and the trekking Boers they 
were a serious menace. The Bantu possessed a well-devel- 
oped tribal system, and had a strong sense of property both 
in land and cattle. Their large herds were their chief form of 
wealth. The worth of a bride, for example, was computed 
in terms of a certain number of cattle, usually from ten to 
one hundred head. Above all, the Bantu tribes possessed a 
strong military sense, including a high degree of obedience 
and fearlessness. The charge of the impi, or native regi- 
ment, was something much to be dreaded. The emigrant 
Boers were able to withstand this fearless onslaught only by 
"laagering" their wagons; that is, by forming them in a 
compact circle much as the early pioneers of the American 
prairies defended themselves from Indian attacks. 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 263 

It was peculiarly unfortunate for the advance of the white 
man that when he first came into contact with the Bantu it 
was with the strongly military tribes of this racial group. 
They comprise many tribes well known to the student of 
South African history, such as the Kafirs, the Xosas, the 
Matabele, and the Zulus. Farther north and in the interior 
the Bantu were, on the whole, more pacific. Such tribes as 
the Basutos, the Baralongs, and the Bechuanas have become 
known through missionary enterprise. It was among the 
Bakwains, a branch of the Bechuanas, that David Living- 
stone served as a missionary before he began his explorations 
of the more remote interior. 

During the period of Dutch control, however, it was only 
with the Hottentots that the Europeans were concerned. 
Wars began with the expansion of the settlement at Table 
Bay. But the Hottentots were appeased by an early recog- 
nition of their rights and by the purchase of lands. The 
expansion of the settlements was given a powerful impetus 
by the immigration to the colony of some two hundred 
Huguenots, who came to the Cape shortly after Louis XIV of 
France revoked the Edict of Nantes (1685). They were 
settled in the newer districts, where they proved excellent 
additions to the population; in time they were absorbed by 
the dominant Dutch. The census of 1691 showed that the 
colony with its various outposts contained at that time about 
one thousand Europeans, of whom two thirds were Nether- 
landers. 

During the eighteenth century expansion went on slowly. 
By 1700 the first barrier range had been crossed, and the 
white man began to penetrate the higher plateau region back 
from the coast. In addition to the growth inland, settle- 
ments were extended eastward along the south coast. The 
district of Swellendam was organized in 1745, and at the same 
time the eastern limit of the colony was declared to be the 
Gamtoos River — almost to Algoa Bay on which Port Eliz- 
abeth is now located. In the latter half of the century the 
Dutch went still farther east to the Fish River. It was in 
these border settlements that the magistracy of Graaf Reinet 



264 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

was formed in 1786. By this gradual expansion the Dutch 
had occupied a stretch of territory about five hundred miles 
east and west along the coast, and averaging less than half 
that distance north and south. 

This expansion to the Fish River brought the Dutch, in the 
latter part of the century, into relation for the first time with 
the Kafirs of Bantu stock. The Kafir tribes had been push- 
ing southward during the time the Europeans were moving 
north and west. In 1779 occurred the so-called " First Kafir 
War." In 1793 a second conflict resulted in the temporary 
relinquishment of some land to the warlike Bantu. The 
Government at Cape Town seemed unable to realize the mil- 
itary character of these new enemies; it had been accustomed 
to Bushmen and Hottentots. But the farmers were fully 
aware of their danger, and felt discontented with the Cape 
Town Government for its lack of understanding of the border 
conditions. 

By this time the Dutch East India Company had de- 
clined. Corruption and mismanagement were rife. Offi- 
cials were chiefly concerned with taking bribes, and other- 
wise adding to their private fortunes. In 1791 the Stadt- 
holder of Holland appointed a commission to investigate 
the affairs of the decadent trading concern, and to suggest 
methods of reform. When the commissioners arrived in 
South Africa, they were apprised by numerous memorials of 
the serious situation. Retrenchment was instituted, and the 
moribund company might have survived for some time 
longer had not other causes ended its rule. The American 
Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 had 
an influence even in South Africa. The French Declaration 
of the Rights of Man was furnishing the European inhab- 
itants with ideas that were incompatible with the rule of a 
monopolistic trading company that had outlived its useful- 
ness. In 1795 an insurrection occurred at Graaf Reinet, and 
Swellendam soon imitated the border district. A "National 
Assembly" was called. Tricolor badges were worn, the 
Company's officials were expelled, and a free republic was 
declared. 



266 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



THE BRITISH OCCUPATION 

Just at this juncture outside events of importance pro- 
foundly influenced this remote colonial establishment so in- 
tent on obtaining greater privileges. Holland was rent in 
two by party strife on account of the spread of French Rev- 
olutionary ideas. One party followed the House of Orange; 
the other was republican. Finally the Stadtholder was com- 
pelled to flee to England. In the meantime the British had 
gone to war with the French, and they were determined that 
the French should not obtain South Africa, even if they made 
successful advances against the Netherlands. After the war 
began the fugitive Stadtholder ceded the colony to the Brit- 
ish, and in 1795 a fleet under Admiral Elphinstone appeared 
at the Cape and took over the colony. 

The British occupation ceased in 1802, for by that time the 
Treaty of Amiens brought about a temporary peace between 
Napoleon and his great enemy. Along with the restoration 
of various other territories South Africa was handed back 
to Holland. The peace was of short duration, however, as 
hostilities were renewed in Europe after but a few months' 
respite. Napoleon, recently made Emperor, gathered a 
mighty army at Boulogne for the invasion of England, but 
the plans against his island neighbor failed, as the British 
retained command of the sea, a control that was made more 
certain by Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805. The next 
year the Netherlands, which, as the Batavian Republic, had 
been practically a satellite of the French Republic, was made 
into the Kingdom of Holland with Louis Bonaparte as its 
King. In that same year Great Britain retook Cape Colony, 
in order to prevent the absorption by the Napoleonic Em- 
pire of this important possession on the road to India. This 
second occupation was to be permanent, for the Congress of 
Vienna in 1814 formally recognized Britain's possession of the 
Dutch colony in southern Africa. 

Cape Colony, received by conquest in 1806, had a total 
population of seventy-five thousand, of whom one third were 
Europeans, and the rest negroes and slaves. The Dutch had 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 267 

found expansion and colonization a slow and difficult process; 
the British were faced with even greater obstacles. During 
most of the period of Dutch rule the natives encountered 
were the unwarlike Hottentots. It has been noted, however, 
that just about the time the colony changed hands, the mili- 
tary Bantu loomed up as a standing menace to advance. 
The monotonous succession of Kafir wars became a constant 
strain on the British resources of men and money. But to 
the native question was now added a nationality problem. 
The European population was almost wholly Dutch. The 
Boers had idiosyncrasies, to be sure; they were parsimonious, 
persevering, set in their religious beliefs, and tenacious of 
their rights. The English rulers did not take very great 
pains to appreciate the Dutch inhabitants. 

As it was, fusion did not occur. The presence of sufficient 
native manual labor and the slave-holding system of the 
farmers effectively prevented the migration of British labor- 
ers to South Africa at the time they were going in such num- 
bers to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. British farm- 
ers were so discouraged by the initial capital needed to de- 
velop the upland veld that there was little British immigra- 
tion compared to that made to other dominions during the 
first two thirds of the nineteenth century. The British were 
confined largely to the official class and to the towns. During 
the years 1820 and 1821 about five thousand British immi- 
grants settled in the Albany district back of Algoa Bay. Port 
Elizabeth and Grahamstown became their chief communities. 
They introduced British local administration in this part of 
the colony, and helped to give something of a British char- 
acter to the population of this stretch of the south coast. 

During the early years of the British occupation troubles 
were almost constant with the Kafirs, with whom five distinct 
wars had been fought by 1833. The Albany district with the 
Fish River as its eastern boundary was the chief sufferer. 
The depredations of the Kafirs consisted in the murder of 
farmers and the taking away of stock. A Cape corps of 
Hottentots was formed for the defense of the boundary. 
These, with regulars and frontier farmers, did their best to 



268 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

protect the borderland. In the Fifth Kafir War, when the 
conflict was finally carried into the enemy's country, the in- 
vaders captured 32,000 head of cattle. The next river east 
of the Fish, known as the "Keiskamma," was declared the 
boundary, and the territory between the two rivers was to 
remain uninhabited and to be patrolled by the Hottentot 
Corps for the safety of the Albany settlers. This was in 1819. 
In the Sixth Kafir War (1834-35) the depredations of the 
Bantu were terrible. Over 120,000 cattle and horses were 
taken away and even a larger number of small animals. 
Heavy fighting occurred before the natives were driven back 
of the Kei River (about seventy miles east of the Keiskamma). 
The Kei was now proclaimed the boundary, and a fort was 
established at King William's Town to hold the new frontier. 
To the amazement of the colonists, who had won this ex- 
tension by hard fighting, the home Government vetoed the 
new measure, and returned to the Kafirs all the territory east 
of the Fish River. This action was due to Charles Grant, 
later Lord Glenelg, at the time Secretary of State for War 
and the Colonies. He was not interested in colonial expan- 
sion. His point of view is well illustrated by his opposition 
to the extension of responsible government to Canada and 
his unfriendliness to the efforts of the systematic colonizers 
in Australia and New Zealand. In the South African ques- 
tion he frankly took the side of the native. Among other 
things his dispatch declared: "In the conduct which was pur- 
sued toward the Kafir nation by the colonists and the public 
authorities of the colony through a long series of years, the 
Kafirs had an ample justification of the war into which they 
rushed. . . . The claim of sovereignty over the new province 
bounded by the Keiskamma and the Kei must be renounced. 
It rests upon a conquest resulting from a war in which, as far 
as I am at present enabled to judge, the original justice is on 
the side of the conquered, not of the victorious party." x 

1 Theal, History of South Africa, iv, 58. Johnston characterizes Lord Glenelg 
as a "sentimental doctrinaire, who had evolved from his inner consciousness an 
unreal South Africa in which Kafir raiders of oxen were noble-minded black 
kings, whom a harsh proconsul was dispossessing of their ancestral territories." 
The Colonization of Africa, p. 260. 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 269 

The chief explanation of Lord Glenelg's attitude and ac- 
tion was his close relation to and sympathy with the work 
of the missionary societies. The humanitarian feeling so 
widely prevalent at this time in England found a natural 
expression for what seemed a downtrodden and mistreated 
negro race. The British missionaries found much to con- 
demn in the Boer treatment of the natives, whether they 
were slaves or freemen. But the charges seem to have been 
feverishly exaggerated, in spite of the fact that Dutch moral- 
ity was not much more advanced than that of the Hebrew 
patriarchs. It is certainly true that the missionaries wid- 
ened the breach between the Dutch farmers and the British 
Government. As early as 1808 charges were made against 
the Dutch by the missionaries on account of their treatment 
of the natives, charges that a full investigation only partially 
confirmed. The greatest advocate for the South African 
native was Dr. John Philip. He believed the native, save in 
matters of education, equal to the European. In 1828 he 
published his Researches in South Africa with the purpose of 
showing the way in which the native was abused. Whatever 
the facts in the case, the feeling of resentment felt by the 
farmers and South African British officials was greatly 
aroused by this volume. Those in intimate touch with the 
Hottentots and the Bantu had not found them such perfect 
specimens of the " noble savage" as a missionary imagina- 
tion had pictured them to the British reading public. 

The Dutch farmers were particularly incensed against a 
government that was guilty of so impractical an attitude. In 
addition, they had other causes for resentment. In 1813 a 
farmer by the name of Bezuidenhout was accused of mis- 
treating a Hottentot servant. He refused to appear at 
court and military forces were used to obtain him. The 
Boers were particularly irritated by the use of the Hottentot 
Corps for the capture of Bezuidenhout. As an outgrowth of 
this incident a conflict occurred between Boer insurgents and 
government troops at Slaghter's Nek. The bitterness of the 
Boers was greatly increased when the authorities hanged five 
of the captured rebels — an unnecessarily harsh act. About 



270 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

this time legislation was passed favoring the Hottentots and 
putting them on a practical legal equality with the whites, to 
the great disgust of the Dutch. 

The abolition of slavery in 1833 was the climax for the 
Dutch farmers. This humanitarian step was empire-wide 
and grew out of the feeling of sympathy for the weak and op- 
pressed, which we have already remarked as strong in Brit- 
ain at this time. The abolition was not immediate; the 
slaves were to remain with their masters as apprentices for 
five years. But the compensation paid by the Government 
seemed altogether inadequate. The great losers in South 
Africa were the Dutch, for they were dependent upon a large 
use of native labor in the operation of their farms and the 
care of their herds. 

THE GREAT TREK 

The effect of these accumulated grievances was far-reach- 
ing. The more irreconcilable element among the Boers de- 
termined to move northward out of the bounds of British 
jurisdiction where they would be free to live according to 
their own standards. Retief , the pioneer leader, published in 
the Grahamstown Journal in 1837 the reasons for the depar- 
ture of himself and his companions. They included evils re- 
sulting from vagrants who infested the country, the losses 
growing out of the emancipation, the system of plunder en- 
dured from the Kafirs, the " unjustifiable odium which has 
been cast upon us by interested and dishonest persons in the 
name of religion." 

The first party of thirty wagons left in 1834. The move- 
ment continued until 1840. During these years about ten 
thousand Boers trekked northward across the Orange River. 
It was a hard undertaking, as the country was rough and prog- 
ress was necessarily slow. Much real danger was encoun- 
tered when the emigrants came into the country of the mili- 
tary Bantu. It took courage and endurance of a high order 
to make this pilgrimage for a new home, and as such it has 
always aroused great admiration. Piet Retief, Andries Pot- 
gieter, Gerrit Maritz, and Andries Pretorius were prominent 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 271 

in the leadership of the migration. Paul Kruger, later a 
President of the South African Republic, was but a boy when 
the Great Trek took place. 

Fortune did not favor the attempt of the trekkers to settle 
in Natal. The Zulus under their leader Dingaan offered a 
fierce resistance to the newcomers. It was only after much 
costly fighting that Natal was temporarily occupied and the 
city of Pietermaritzburg founded. More important was the 
conquest of the lands north of the Orange River whence the 
warlike Matabele were driven northward into the district 
that now bears their name. 

In the new territory north of the Orange a government was 
soon organized by the trekkers. It is of interest to note that 
in the earliest Grondwet or Constitution civil and political 
equality between white and colored persons was not recog- 
nized, and rights of citizenship were granted only when an 
oath had been taken that a person had had no connection 
with the London Missionary Society. The Boers regarded 
themselves as divinely led in their work, for the meetings at 
which this constitution was adopted were opened and closed 
with prayer and the singing of psalms. There was a Volks- 
raad with legislative and judicial functions and a Comman- 
dant-General. 

The Government was not altogether effective. The Brit- 
ish felt that the Orange River settlements served as a refuge 
for fugitives from justice in Cape Colony. In addition, trou- 
ble developed between the Boers and the Griquas to the west 
of the new settlements. This native people claimed the pro- 
tection of Cape Colony. In 1845 Governor Maitland gave 
the Griquas military assistance, and three years later his suc- 
cessor, Sir Harry Smith, came to the conclusion that peace 
could be maintained only by the establishment of a regular 
government. He, therefore, issued a proclamation of sov- 
ereignty declaring all the country between the Orange and 
Vaal Rivers a British dependency under the name of the 
" Orange River British Sovereignty." The Boers under Pre- 
torius took up arms, but in the Battle of Boomplaats they 
were defeated. As a result of this act of Sir Harry Smith the 



272 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

people who had moved beyond the confines of the British 
system in the thirties found themselves enmeshed in it again 
by the middle of the century, 
•r The irreconcilables were compelled to move northward a 
second time. This time there was a considerable migration 
across theJVJaal into what is now known as the Transvaal. 
Emigrant farmers had settled in this more remote district 
& long before 1848, and already the Matabele had been driven 
from this territory to the north of the Limpopo River. 
Many of the Boers who settled in western Natal, but later 
found it an undesirable home, moved on into the Transvaal. 
The country north of the Vaal suffered from much disorder 
during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, where 
there was even less effective governmental control than in the 
Orange River Sovereignty. Potgieter and Pretorius were 
the chief Boer leaders in the northern colony, but they would 
not cooperate, and their inability to work together kept the 
Transvaal in an unsettled state. 

The British were not long in control of the Orange River 
Sovereignty before a strange reversal of policy occurred that 
set both the Boer colonies beyond the control of Great Brit- 
ain. The British had not been successful in bringing order 
into the Orange River district. The prevailing anarchy led 
the republican party to petition Pretorius (now in the Trans- 
vaal) to come to their assistance and give the country a 
peaceful but non-British administration. Naturally the 
British resented this. Commissioners were sent from Cape 
Colony to inquire into conditions; they met Pretorius and 
^ several hundred Transvaal farmers on the Sand River in Jan- 
\ uary, 1852. There the SanoL^Riv^r^pjrvention was agreed 
upon; by it the Transvaal was promised the~right to manage 
its own affairs without any British interference. The British 
further agreed not to push their claims nor make tribal alli- 
ances beyond the Vaal River. The Boers, on their part, 
agreed to the prohibition of slavery and slave-trading. Both 
declared that they would not furnish war material to the 
native tribes. In this Convention peace, free trade, and 
friendly intercourse were provided for in a friendly manner 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 273 

for the northern Boer colony. But the people south of the 
Vaal declared that Pretorius had betrayed them by making 
terms for the northern district only. He tried to meet this 
objection by inviting the anti-British inhabitants to cross 
the river where farms would be provided for those that came. 

Two years later the British retired voluntarily from the 
Orange River Sovereignty. The constant wars with the 
Bantu had been a heavy strain upon the Government. 
When the Orange River Sovereignty was taken over, the 
load for the taxpayers was increased. The Basuto Wars of 
1851 and 1852 came as a final argument for the abandonment 
of this district. Earl Grey, the Secretary of State for War 
and the Colonies, had agreed unwillingly, in the first place, to 
the assumption of authority beyond the Orange River. Al- 
though Englishmen had settled there in the years following 
1848, the country, in spite of their protests, was declared 
independent from British authority by the Convention of 
Bloemfontein in 1854. The terms of this Convention were 
similar to those made two years before with the Transvaal, 
including the prohibition of slavery and the slave-trade in the 
Orange Free State. 

By these two treaties the Boer states became self-govern- 
ing, the one south of the Vaal as the Orange Free State, its 
northern neighbor as the South African Republic. It is not 
necessary to follow in detail the growth of these states in 
the years before the discovery of gold and diamonds. The 
southern republic, which made a constitution in the year it 
was freed, chose as its first President Josias Philip Hoffmann. 
For the first ten years dissension continued, until Jan Hen- 
drik Brand was elected President of the Orange Free State in 
1864. He was reelected four times, administering the coun- 
try continuously from 1864 until his death in 1888. Under 
his excellent leadership prosperity and order came to the 
republic. 

In the Transvaal confusion reigned for some time after the 
Sand River Convention. Both Potgieter and Andries Pre- 
torius died in 1853. Two years later a new constitution was 
drafted by a committee of three, one of whom was Paul Kru- 



274 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ger. Marthinus Pretorius, son of the great trekker, was an 
early President. But discord, even civil war, was too often 
the order of the day. Sir George Grey, Governor of Cape 
Colony during this period, declared that matters had reached 
such a stage in the Transvaal that he was at a loss to know 
who was the head of the Government. Anarchy was par- 
tially overcome in 1864 with the general recognition of Mar- 
thinus Pretorius as President and of Paul Kruger as Com- 
mandant-General. 

Just about the time the Conventions were being arranged, 
the Transvaal Boers came into conflict with a distinguished 
missionary of the hated London Missionary Society, David 
Livingstone. He was stationed at Kolobeng among the Bak- 
wains on the western border of the Boer territory. Pretorius 
threatened to kill Livingstone if he caught him. Fortunately 
for the famous missionary, he was on a visit to the Cape in 
1852 when a party of Boers attacked Kolobeng. Dr. Liv- 
ingstone aroused the hatred of the Boers by his unmeasured 
condemnation of their treatment of the natives; he felt that 
it amounted to practical slavery. The Boers were not in- 
fluenced by the ideas of equality spread by the French Revo- 
lution, nor by the humanitarianism that had so greatly af- 
fected the life of England at the opening of the century. Yet 
Governor Sir George Grey of Cape Colony, who made in- 
vestigations at this time, found the Boers to be, on the whole, 
considerate of and kindly to the natives. The code of the 
Dutch farmers was very different from that of the London 
Missionary Society; it was uncompromising in its recognition 
of racial inequality. The true position on this vexed question 
probably lies between the extreme stand of the Dutch farmer 
and that of the British missionary. 

CAPE COLONY 

The internal development of Cape Colony went on more 
rapidly after the Great Trek than before. The home Gov- 
ernment had less hesitancy in granting representative insti- 
tutions after the more anti-British elements left the colony. 
Petitions were presented from time to time asking for a bet- 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 275 

ter system than an appointed Legislative Council offered. 
A question that arose early was as to whether the eastern dis- 
tricts should be separated from the older part of the colony, 
or whether the capital should be moved farther eastward so 
as to be in closer touch with the frontier. Earl Grey asked 
the Cape Government for an expression of its wish on this 
and other matters. The colony decided to stay as a unit with 
Cape Town as the capital. A draft constitution was pre- 
sented to the home Government and the assurance was given 
that the Dutch and the British would get on well together 
under a more representative system. 

The Constitution was finally drafted in 1853. It pro- 
vided for two houses of Parliament, a Legislative Council, 
and a House of Assembly. Members to both were elected on 
the basis of a property qualification. The Governor could 
dissolve the chambers at will. Although Parliament was to 
be convened at least once a year, its acts were to be subject to 
a double veto, that of the Governor and that of the Crown. 
This constitution provided for representative but not respon- 
sible government. In 1855 both houses passed resolutions 
favoring the further step. The authorities, however, were 
not yet prepared for the advance, and it was not until 1872 
that responsible government became a fact in Cape Colony. 
Since that time this part of the British Empire has lived un- 
der the familiar system of a ministry enjoying the confidence 
of Parliament. 

Reference should be made to the administration of Sir 
George Grey. His accomplishments in South Australia and 
New Zealand have been recounted in an earlier chapter. In 
1854 he was sent to Cape Town as Governor of Cape Colony 
and High Commissioner of South Africa. His signal success 
with the Maoris in New Zealand led to his appointment to a 
field where the relation of native and Britisher was not satis- 
factory. Sir George Grey was in Cape Colony until 1861, 
earnestly endeavoring to aid the Kafirs and at the same time 
to keep them under due control. He preserved satisfactory 
relations with the Boer states, although he disapproved of 
the British relinquishment of control over the Orange River 



276 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Sovereignty. He even went counter to official instructions 
when he encouraged the return of the Boer states to the 
British Empire. Sir George Grey was an enthusiastic advo- 
cate of federation fifty years before it became a fact. 

The expansion of Cape Colony continued after the Great 
Trek. It will be recalled that Lord Glenelg ordered the terri- 
tory between the Keiskamma and the Kei to be returned to 
the Kafirs. Notwithstanding this concession, raids contin- 
ued and the frontier was never safe. After a Seventh Kafir 
War in 1846, the boundary was again extended to the Kei, 
and a new district known as " British Kaffraria" was organ- 
ized. This district was not at first a part of Cape Colony, 
but was administered by the Governor as High Commissioner 
of South Africa. It was annexed in 1865 after the native 
population had been greatly diminished by famine. 1 

Basutoland, another thickly populated native territory, 
was a serious menace to both Boers and British. It is located 
in the mountainous district just east of the Orange Free 
State. During the numerous wars it became a refuge for the 
natives of various tribes, who combined under the guidance 
of a wise leader named Moshesh. As a result of much trou- 
ble with the Boers, the Basutos appealed to Great Britain. 
In 1871, shortly after the death of Moshesh, the land was 
annexed to Cape Colony. It later was separated from Cape 
Colony and to-day is directly under the Crown, in a closer 
relation to the British Government than that held by the 
dependent native states of India. 

In the same year that Basutoland was annexed, the terri- 
tory known as Griqualand West — north of the Orange River 
and west of the Orange Free State — was added to Cape Col- 

1 The starvation of thousands of Kafirs in 1857 was the result of their own 
delusions. A priest declared that he had received a message directing the 
Kafirs to destroy all their corn and cattle, for their ancestors, on the fulfillment 
of that condition, would reappear and bring with them cattle bigger and better 
than they had possessed before. On the fateful day, February 18, the sun was 
to turn back and set in the east after ascending for a time toward the zenith. 
The great purpose of the return of the ancestors was to be the total destruction 
of the British. The Kafirs followed the advice of their priest with the result 
that thousands starved, despite every effort made to help them, and 100,000 
had to leave Kafirland and seek employment in Cape Colony. 



THE EMPIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA 277 

ony. A chief reason was the discovery of diamonds in this 
district at Kimberley. 

One other British possession in South Africa remains for 
consideration. Natal is located beyond Kaffraria on the east 
coast; at its back lies Basutoland and the Orange Free State. 
We have followed Boer trekkers who came into this district 
in 1838. Even before the Boer invasion the British had oc- 
cupied the coast and started settlements, notably at the pres- 
ent site of the city of Durban. The two white races came 
into conflict early in the forties, with the result that Natal v 
was declared a dependency of the Cape in 1844. v The great 
part of the Boers thereupon trekked northwestward. In 
1848 Natal obtained a separate legislature and in 1856 was 
made an independent colony, under a constitution much 
less liberal than that granted to the Cape in 1853. Re- 
sponsible government was not granted until the close of the 
century. 

The European settlements multiplied and grew during the 
period of European occupation and Boer emigration. When 
the British came into permanent possession of South Africa 
in 1806, there were 75,000 inhabitants, one third of whom 
were Europeans. By 1870 the approximate white population 
of Cape Colony was 175,000, of Natal 25,000, of the Orange 
Free State 60,000, and of the Transvaal 50,000. The devel- 
opment since 1870 has been rapid, and to-day the Union of 
South Africa comprises a million and a half whites and 
wealth many times greater than that possessed when Kimber- 
ley suddenly leaped into fame. The discovery of remarkable 
wealth in diamonds and gold, which gave an impetus to 
immigration not unlike the Australian gold discoveries of 
twenty years before, accounts in large part for the sudden ac- 
celeration of population and wealth. But the complexities 
and troubles as well as the growth of South Africa during the 
past fifty years must be reserved for a later chapter and a 
more detailed treatment. 



278 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

The standard history of South Africa has long been that of G. M. Theal, 
History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872 (5 vols., London, 1916), though 
somewhat partial to the Boers. His one-volume history of South Africa 
in the "Story of the Nations" Series appeared in 1899. W.C. Scully, A 
History of South Africa from the Earliest Days to the Union (London, 1915), 
is more of a chronology than a history. W. B. Worsfold, The Union of 
South Africa (Boston, 1913), contains some good preliminary chapters on 
the period under consideration. Sir Charles Lucas has published in three 
volumes the material dealing with South Africa in his "Historical Geog- 
raphy of the British Colonies," of which volume 1 (Oxford, 1913) brings 
the account down to 1895. An interesting, if somewhat diffuse, story of 
the development is that of A. Wyatt Tilby, South Africa, 1486-1913 (Lon- 
don, 1914). Reference should also be made to Sir Harry H. Johnston's 
A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races (Cambridge, 1913) 
and N. D. Harris' Intervention and Colonization in Africa (Boston, 1914). 
The lives of Sir George Grey treat of his work in South Africa, and the 
lives of the missionaries, notably that of Livingstone, give interesting rec- 
ords of life among the natives. Recently an account of the Records of the 
Early History of South Africa has been written by C. Graham Botha in the 
?' Helps for Students of History" Series (1921). 



CHAPTER XVII 

IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE 

When Victoria became the Queen of England in 1837, the 
possessions over which she was to rule were widespread in- 
deed. Her Empire included great holdings such as Canada 
and India, numerous islands, and small beginnings in far- 
away lands south of the equator that did not, in 1837, seem to 
be capable of the surprising growth they have since made. 
In fact, the Empire Queen Victoria inherited was still em- 
bryonic. As we have seen, there was a great apathy toward 
colonial possessions after the loss of the thirteen American col- 
onies. 1 The expensive Napoleonic wars served to arouse fur- 
ther question in the minds of many British thinkers as to the 
value of money and effort expended on oversea dominions. 

Yet it will be recalled that even before 1837 there was evi- 
dence of a keener interest in the colonies. The flow of emi- 
grants to British possessions beyond the seas attached new 
value to these homes of English-speaking people. Enthu- 
siastic colonizers promoted schemes for the development of 
the newly occupied regions in establishments as far removed 
as New Zealand, Manitoba, and South Africa. In tracing 
the expansion and anglicizing of Canada, Australia, New 
Zealand, and South Africa we have been able to visualize this 
amazing change. Canada had been transformed from a 
French-speaking river settlement, Australia from a penal sta- 
tion, South Africa from a Dutch trading and agricultural col- 
ony, into new Englands beyond the sea, which were being 
more and more closely united to Britain by the indefinable 
bonds of sentiment. The constantly accelerating growth of 
the Industrial Revolution naturally increased the value of the 
colonies as sources of raw materials and as probable markets 
for British manufactures. A new colonial empire was in 
formation because of these various forces at work, and that, 

1 See chapter xi. 



280 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

too, in spite of much opposition to, and gross ignorance of, 
the colonies in the early nineteenth century. 1 

What makes the Victorian Age so important are the very 
great changes the British Empire went through in the later 
years of the century. It is essential to understand, even 
though in this connection the survey be but superficial, the 
character of the influences that so profoundly modified and 
developed the older holdings into the more compact organi- 
zation of the present day. During this time there was no 
ordered development of the Empire. Parts of it were well 
advanced and received many privileges. Other possessions 
were little more than military posts. The organism was a 
hybrid. And yet, in spite of its heterogeneity; the British 
Empire became, during the reign of Victoria, a well-knit, 
political unit. It is significant to compare the inauspicious 
beginnings of the reign with its magnificent close. In 1837 
there was a distressing rebellion in Canada. Sixty years 
later the Diamond Jubilee was held, where the Premier that 
made the most notable impression at the Colonial Confer- 
ence in that year was the French Canadian, Sir Wilfrid Lau- 
rier. The Jubilee announced to the world that the British 
Empire had intense loyalty and enthusiasm for a queen who 
symbolized this unity in a very appealing way. 

Before proceeding to a study of the recent growth and pres- 
ent character of the various parts of the imperial organism, 
we must survey the dominions as a whole and appraise the in- 
fluences that wrought such changes within sixty years. 

THE BRITISH MONOPOLY 

The period that we are studying naturally divides itself 
into two almost equal parts. In the first half of the reign the 

v 1 Readers will probably be familiar with the anecdote told of the well-known 
Lord Palmerston, successively Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Prime 
Minister during the second quarter of the century. Palmerston once intro- 
duced himself at the Colonial Office with the words: "I have come to look after 
the colonies — in the first place, where are the colonies?" In 1852 Disraeli, 
who was later to be one of the most ardent Imperialists, exclaimed a propos of the 
fisheries dispute between Canada and the United States: "These wretched 
colonies will all be independent too in a few years, and are a millstone round 
our necks" (quoted in Hall, British Commonwealth of Nations, p. 47). 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 281 

Empire stood almost unrivaled. This part of the Victorian 
Age has been aptly termed the period of British monopoly. 
The United States was concerning itself wholly with conti- 
nental expansion by pushing westward its frontier. Ger- 
many was not able as yet to interest itself in outside mat- 
ters. Spain, Portugal, and Holland held empires that were 
unchanging in form or government — not essentially differ- 
ent from the days when they were established. In fact 
France was the only European nation that was showing an 
interest in new colonies during the first part of this period, 
but French efforts were confined to fields with which Great 
Britain was not concerned. As a result there was none of 
the anxiety felt by British statesmen for the oversea posses- 
sions that has governed thought and action so powerfully 
in the last thirty-five years. 

As a consequence, the natural interests of Englishmen 
were influencing the character of the new Empire during the 
mid-century period. There was neither haste nor anxiety 
as a factor governing colonial attitudes. Probably foremost 
among the forces at work was the humanitarian interest 
which prevailed, not only in regard to affairs at home, but 
also in the colonies. Many of the results of the growing sen- 
sitiveness to wrong in the decades following the French 
Revolution have been noted. 1 The prisons were relieved of 
criminals by transportation, especially to the new Australian 
settlements. Paupers and other unfortunates were sent 
across the seas to find new homes. Better conditions were 
granted to downtrodden Ireland. 

A more important effect of this humanitarian interest on 
colonial life was the feeling growing during this time against 
slavery and the slave-trade. In 1807, to the credit of the na- 
tion that had formerly done so much of the carrying of hu- 
man chattels, the slave-trade was abolished. British policy 
from this time on aimed at the abolition of the slave-trade 
among other nations. At the Congress of Vienna, in 1814- 
15, the British representatives were influential in having the 
Powers proclaim their adoption of the principle Great Brit- 

1 See pp. 166 ff., 196 ff., 208, 254, 256-57, 268 ff. 



282 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ain had so much at heart. Shortly after Queen Victoria be- 
gan to reign, an agreement was reached by the United States 
and Great Britain whereby they were to cooperate in sup- 
pressing the slave-trade off the coast of Africa. 

The abolition of slavery in the dominions of Great Britain 
is even more creditable to her humanitarian feeling. In 1833 
the victory was won by the abolitionists for the whole Em- 
pire; a bill was passed by Parliament providing for the grad- 
ual abolition of slavery, apprenticeship to continue for a 
period in order to make the transition to free labor easier. 
Twenty million pounds was paid to the slave-owners through- 
out the Empire. The effect of this measure on the slave- 
holding Boers of South Africa has been recounted. 1 In the 
West Indies, especially in the island of Jamaica, considerable 
trouble was caused by the measure. The Act of 1833 showed 
to the world that the British Empire was not to be a field for 
the further merciless exploitation of backward races, even 
though abolition caused temporary economic inconvenience. 

The humanitarian spirit found further expression in the 
interest shown by the home country in the betterment of the 
conditions under which natives in the colonies were living. 
Lord Bentinck's reforms in India serve as an illustration. 2 
The interest in the Hottentots of South Africa, in the Maoris 
of New Zealand, and in the natives of other possessions was 
an expression of this widely applied sympathy. During the 
first half of the century the missionary societies were an 
important, if not the controlling, influence in the home Gov- 
ernment's attitude toward the colonies. 3 This tendency 
to make the Colonial Office more carefully recognize the 
needs of native races has given to British imperial develop- 

1 See p. 270. 2 See chapter xin. 

3 In 1792 the Baptist Missionary Society was organized, and Carey was sent 
to India in spite of the opposition of the East India Company to missionary 
activity. The London Missionary Society, a Congregational body, was 
founded in 1795; it has been especially important in South Africa and Poly- 
nesia. The Church Missionary Society, in which Lord Glenelg was much in- 
terested, was founded in 1799 but did not receive the recognition of the Episco- 
pate for nearly fifty years. Its missionaries were particularly important in 
Melanesia and New Zealand. The Wesleyans had sent missionaries to various 
colonial fields before the opening of the nineteenth century, although the Wes- 
leyan society was not organized until 1814. 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 283 

ment a finer moral tone than has been general in colonial 
policy. As has been already pointed out, South Africa did 
not profit altogether from this extreme consideration of the 
natives. The marked warlike propensities of the Bantu and 
the uncompromising attitude of the Boers toward the subject 
population made the British problem in South Africa partic- 
ularly difficult. 

The development of the humanitarian spirit resulted in a 
fairer treatment of colonial native races. On the other hand, 
the growth of British industry and commerce tended toward 
a relaxation of the bonds between the colonies and the home 
country, and resulted in a fairer treatment of the various 
parts of the Empire. The old colonial system with its re- 
strictive navigation laws had been built on monopoly and 
exploitation. The weakness of this system was explained 
by Adam Smith as far back as the beginning of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. Little, however, was done to improve the 
situation within the Empire until after the close of the Na- 
poleonic wars. In 1820 the Merchants' Petition, asking for 
greater freedom of trade, was presented to the House of 
Commons. Three years later Huskisson became President 
of the Board of Trade. He did much to improve the situa- 
tion, altering some of the Navigation Laws, reducing duties 
on raw materials from foreign countries, and wholly remov- 
ing the tax on those from the colonies. 

When the reign of Queen Victoria opened, the free-trade 
movement had acquired considerable momentum. The In- 
dustrial Revolution had so increased the business prosperity 
and commercial supremacy of Great Britain that the manu- 
facturers became more convinced than ever of the advan- 
tages of free trade. Cheaper food would naturally cheapen 
wages as well as bring greater efficiency to the workshops. 
The loss of duties would be counterbalanced by the in- 
creased capacity of the country to pay taxes. In the forties 
the repeal of protective duties came rapidly. A high point 
was reached when the Corn Laws were legislated out of ex- 
istence in 1846. In 1849 the old Navigation Laws were 
repealed. And when Gladstone became Chancellor of the 



284 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Exchequer further steps were taken that made Greater Brit- 
ain more than ever a free-trade Empire. 

As a result of these measures, the new colonial Empire, by 
the mid-century, was placed on an altogether different basis 
from that of the old colonial system of the early eighteenth 
century. The colonies were freed from hampering laws made 
by the home Government. Yet this new policy did not seem 
to harm the British Isles or the colonies. The one found the 
phenomenal development of the Industrial Revolution an 
ample protection, while the colonies for that very reason saw 
in the home country the best market for raw materials. It 
followed, of course, that Britain became the emporium for 
colonial trade. By 1859 so far had this movement gone to- 
ward laisser-faire that Britain allowed her self-governing 
colonies practical independence in financial matters. The 
growth of protectionist ideas was not to assume importance 
until the British Empire began to feel the menace of rivals in 
her industrial and commercial activity at the opening of the 
twentieth century. 

In the field of government there was the same tendency 
toward a relaxation of the hold on the colonies. The Reform 
Bill of 1832, by which the franchise was more equitably dis- 
tributed in Great Britain, became law only after the re- 
peated efforts of Lord John Russell, in particular, to further 
reform. This grant of greater privileges to the people of the 
British Isles was but preliminary to more freedom in the po- 
litical affairs of the colonies. The American colonies had re- 
volted in the previous century on the question of self-govern- 
ment. It was not unnatural that their experience should be 
paralleled when the Canadian provinces came to greater 
maturity. Great Britain, however, did not attempt to solve 
this new problem by force. Instead Lord Durham was sent 
out to examine the causes of the Canadian Rebellion. In his 
famous Report he proposed that self-government be granted 
to the British North American provinces. 1 Although Lord 
Durham's recommendations met with much opposition, his 
ideas were gradually accepted. Under his son-in-law as 

1 See pp. 225 ff. 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 285 

Governor-General, Canada became practical master of her 
own political life: Lord Elgin did not exercise the veto with 
the freedom of earlier governors; he preferred to let the 
will of the majority in the colonial legislature decide matters 
affecting colonial life. 

Lord Elgin received instructions as to his plan of action 
from a Colonial Secretary who holds an important place in 
the growth of representative government in the Empire. In 
1846 the third Earl Grey was appointed the Secretary for 
War and the Colonies in the newly formed Cabinet of Lord 
John Russell. Both the Prime Minister and the Colonial 
Secretary were earnest believers in colonial self-government 
for the well-advanced dominions. They also held that the 
colonies, not yet prepared for self-government, should be 
trained for greater privileges by definite probation. When 
Lord Elgin promoted the principle of self-government in 
Canada by going so far as to accept the Indemnity Bill for the 
rebels of 1837, Earl Grey upheld the Canadian Governor. 

This significant action took place in 1847; it marks the be- 
ginning of a process that is still in operation. Three years 
later a second step was taken in granting constitutional priv- 
ileges to colonies. In a noteworthy speech the Prime Minis- 
ter showed that his grant of privileges to the colonies was not 
intended to weaken but rather to strengthen their connection 
with the mother country. New South Wales, Victoria, Tas- 
mania, and South Australia were given the right to choose 
constituent assemblies and to make their own constitutions 
— constitutions that were sanctioned by the home Govern- 
ment in 1856. The constitution of New Zealand went into 
effect in 1853 and Newfoundland was granted responsible 
government in 1855. This principle of granting representa- 
tive institutions and responsible government to the strong 
English-speaking colonies continued and was applied as the 
opportunity arose. Cape Colony in 1872, Western Australia 
in 1890, and the Boer Republics after the war with England 
were added to the group of self-governing dominions. 

Great Britain was able to develop her Empire leisurely 
during these early years of the reign of Victoria. The British 



286 THE BRITISH EMPIRE , 

dominions were enlarged, but there was no hurried, conscious 
effort to snatch up the desirable additions to British territory. 
Canada grew westward across the plains, India absorbed ter- 
ritories to the northwest and the northeast, the Australian 
coast-line became more and more British, Cape Colony 
reached out east and north. The importance of the period, 
nevertheless, rests not in the additions made to the Empire so 
much as in the adoption for the government of the Empire of 
the ideals we have been considering. 

The problem of defense was not a serious one until the 
Crimean War in the fifties made the need of army reorgani- 
zation abundantly evident. As time went on, the British 
statesmen concerned with colonial policy tended to turn over 
to the self-governing colonies more and more the problem of 
their own protection. This meant a withdrawal of many 
isolated garrisons from colonial stations during this time of 
reorganization, and their establishment at more strategic 
points. 

During the third quarter of the century international re- 
lations became more and more important for Greater Britain. 
Her widely scattered dominions brought her into touch with 
almost every important diplomatic problem. To state but a 
few of the more outstanding happenings of the time is to reg- 
ister a need for increased care on the part of the Empire. 
Hardly had the Crimean War ended before the Indian pos- 
sessions were endangered by the Mutiny. In 1859 occurred 
the Franco-Italian War with Austria. In 1861 began the 
Civil War in the United States. Both these conflicts raised 
delicate questions for the British Foreign Minister. In 1870 
the Franco-Prussian War gave Europe a new master in 
Prussia. German unity was achieved in the defeat of France, 
and Italians took the opportunity of completing the work of 
uniting the Italian states under one government. Austria 
and France became weaker, but Prussia grew very much 
stronger, becoming a potent continental and world-power. 
Russia, in the meantime, was expanding. As a result of the 
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the Ottoman Empire seemed 
well-nigh ejected from Europe. But the Great Powers, Brit- 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 287 

ain included, feared the menace of an overgrown Russia and 
revised the Russian rearrangement of the Balkans at the 
Congress of Berlin in 1878. The meetings of this great 
Congress revealed the essential characteristics of the Euro- 
pean situation in the latter part of the nineteenth century — ■ 
the important place of Germany and the disagreement of the 
Powers over the disposition of the territories of weak states. 

These rapid changes in European matters naturally 
aroused concern in British governmental circles. Imperial 
interests became more and more important. The Empire 
took on new value in the eyes of British statesmen. The 
man who contributed most during this time to the increased 
official interest in the Empire was Benjamin Disraeli. In his 
two ministries (1868 and 1874-80), he labored earnestly for 
the strengthening and extension of the dominions. In 1875 
he purchased the Suez Canal shares. In the following year 
Victoria became Empress of India, the "White Queen over 
the Seas." In 1877 the Transvaal was annexed, in the next 
year the government of Cyprus was assumed, and the occu- 
pation of Egypt began in 1881. A new imperialism gave 
to the British Empire deeper significance and a greater value. 

Disraeli was not alone among prominent Englishmen in the 
advocacy of an aggressive and confident imperial policy. 
James Anthony Froude, the historian, who had visited South 
Africa in 1874-75, and Australia and the West Indies in the 
eighties, made these parts of the Empire better known by the 
published accounts of his impressions. Sir Charles Dilke, 
on leaving Cambridge, journeyed around the world, and pub- 
lished his observations on his return under the title Greater 
Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries 
during 1866-7. This work met a wide demand and was is- 
sued in enlarged form in 1875 as a result of a second journey. 
In 1890 his book of travel was brought up to date and made 
more directly valuable as a store of knowledge regarding the 
Empire in his well-known Problems of Greater Britain. The 
advanced Liberal, William E. Forster, was an advocate of 
imperial federation as early as 1875, and the chief founder 
and first president of the Imperial Federation League. Sir 



288 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

George Grey's enthusiasm for Greater Britain has already 
been recorded. 1 Another colonial administrator, Sir Bartle 
Frere, was also important in spreading an interest in the Em- 
pire as well as in furnishing leadership in India and South 
Africa. We shall have occasion to study in a later chapter 
the work of Cecil Rhodes, who went to Kimberley in 1871. 
One of the most earnest exponents of the new imperialism 
was the historian, Sir John Seeley. In 1883 he published the 
Expansion of England. It won for him knighthood, and has 
served as a very important if not a chief means of spreading 
the new conception of the Empire. A poet of wide imperial 
vision was found in Rudyard Kipling, born in Bombay in 
1865. 2 

RIVAL EMPIRES 

The motive power, however, for the new British imperial- 
ism came not solely from within. One of the greatest stimuli 
to this freshened interest in the oversea dominions was the 
appearance of rival empires during these momentous years. 
The marvelous growth of British industry and commerce was 
not incorrectly connected by onlookers with the numerous 
possessions Britain held "in fee." As the Industrial Revo- 
lution took a stronger hold on the continental European na- 
tions, it was natural that they should consider empire neces- 
sary to the development of their own internal resources. 
Besides, the very pride and position of Britain with her " far- 
flung dominion" engendered an envy that was soon to result 
in the creation of strong rivals. So important is an under- 
standing of this competition as a factor in forming the British 
Empire of to-day that a brief survey must be made of the 
other imperial dominions created in the last quarter of the 
nineteenth century. 

1 Chapter xvi. 

2 Kipling's tales of Indian life did much to popularize this distant possession. 
By 1889 Kipling had become famous, and as the years went on he inveighed 
with increasing force against "little Englandism." A broad imperial feeling 
was in no small measure the result of his exhilarating appeals. The call came 
in such well-known and unforgettable songs as "The Ballad of the East and the 
West" (1889), "The English Flag" (1891), "The Native Born" (1894), "Our 
Lady of the Snows" (Canada) (1897), "The Recessional" (1897), and "The 
Houses (A Song of the Dominions)". (1898). 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 289 

France has one of the great empires of the present time, in 
spite of the fact that most of the old Empire was lost to Great 
Britain in the eighteenth century. When the Napoleonic 
wars ended, France retained but a few insignificant and 
widely scattered posts and islands. The first important ad- 
dition to the new Empire was the result of bringing Algeria 
under the French flag and an orderly rule. Beginning with 
an attempt to suppress piracy, a gradual occupation of the 
country was carried on, so that by the end of the reign of 
Louis Philippe (1848) this part of the north African coast was 
French. During the Second Empire the Senegal Valley was 
added to the formerly small French possessions in equatorial 
Africa; beginnings had also been made in Cochin China. 

It was not until after the disastrous Franco-Prussian War 
that France began to have ambitious imperial plans. The 
people of the humiliated country had their attention turned 
to colonies by Jules Ferry in the hope that the loss of Alsace- 
Lorraine might not remain so poignant. In 1881 Tunis was 
occupied, in spite of a strong feeling in Italy that this part of 
the African coast was by right Italian. A notable addition 
to the French Empire was the island of Madagascar, which 
was taken in the nineties. From Algeria it was but natural 
that the work of penetration should be carried farther west 
into Morocco, where, in spite of German attempts to 
prevent it, a French protectorate was established in 1912. 
France had come into collision with British interests in 
Upper Egypt just at the close of the nineteenth century, 
but, as a result of the settlement of the Sudan bounda- 
ries, better relations ensued between these two empire 
builders. Even cordial good feeling and cooperation were 
the result. To-day the French possessions in Africa occupy 
more of the continent than those of any other nation. 

The Russian Empire, until its disintegration in the World 
War, was the greatest continuous stretch of territory under 
one government to be found on the globe. The great bulk 
of Russia and Siberia had been acquired before France 
started to rebuild her Empire in the nineteenth century. 
But Russia, too, has made notable additions in recent years. 



290 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

After long wars Russia became mistress of the Caucasus re- 
gion, and the way was opened to northeastern Turkey. Dur- 
ing the nineteenth century the Kirghiz Steppes and Turkestan 
were slowly brought under the power of the Czar. By this 
advance northern Persia came under the control of the en- 
larging Russia, and, in the years just before the World War, 
Britain and Russia even mapped out for themselves spheres 
of influence in Persia. As a result of Russian advances into 
Bokhara, the British in India became nervous for the safety 
of their northwestern boundary. Russian pressure on 
China became severe also during these years. In 1860 Rus- 
sia acquired the seacoast on the Japan Sea thereby obtaining 
Vladivostok as a seaport and a terminus for the trans-Sibe- 
rian Railway. By the opening of the present century this 
great trunk-line was completed, and Russia began the ab- 
sorption of Manchuria. 

Among the other states of Europe, Portugal, Spain, and 
Holland were content with the remnants of their old empires. 
Austria never aspired to the possession of non-contiguous 
territory, but enlarged its possessions by additions in the 
Balkan Peninsula. Italy and Germany did not become uni- 
fied until 1870. After the Franco-Prussian War the new 
German Empire began its amazing advancement under the 
astute guidance of Bismarck. Of necessity, these two re- 
cently unified national groups, Italy and Germany, came to 
possess an imperial consciousness after much of the non- 
European world, and especially its most valuable portions, 
had already been appropriated. As they saw the growth of 
commerce and industry in the rival states, they felt that it 
[was partially based on the possession of colonies. Therefore 
it was natural that Italy and Germany should follow in the 
footsteps of their neighbors and build empires across the seas. 
1 Curiously enough the immediate impulse that led to the 
surprising "boom" in imperialism came from the exploration 
of the interior of Africa, particularly by British explorers. 
David Livingstone, before his death in 1873, had made 
known great stretches of the interior of the continent. Dark- 
est Africa was found to be much more valuable than was 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 291 

formerly thought to be the case. The interior, of which air 
most nothing had been known heretofore, proved to be 9 
high tableland, well watered and the producer of much eco- 
nomic wealth, with even larger potential possibilities. 

In 1876 Leopold II of Belgium, who had become interested 
in African exploration and colonization, held a conference at 
Brussels, where a society called the " International African 
Association" was formed. Henry M. Stanley, who had 
made a name for himself in his search for the lost Living- 
stone, was employed by Leopold to explore the Congo; in the 
five years following 1879 Stanley mapped out a great deal of 
the interior of the Congo region. The International African 
Association soon became frankly a commercial and not a 
philanthropic organization. Therefore, in consequence of 
the possible clashing of various national interests in this rich 
region, it became necessary to codify regulations for interna- 
tional relations. 

This was the primary aim of a meeting held at Berlin in 
1884-85. The conference at Berlin marks the beginning of 
a frantic scramble for territory that is characteristic of the 
new imperialism. The Congo matter was arranged by grant- 
ing freedom of commerce in what came to be known as 
the "Congo Free State." More important were the rules 
adopted for the appropriation of other African territories by 
the Powers. It was stipulated' that all the Powers should 
be notified when a protectorate was purposed. The test of 
ownership was to be actual occupation and the maintenance 
of law and order; a "sphere of influence" was not to be con- 
fused with a territorial acquisition. No provision, however, 
was accepted regarding freedom of trade. Although this had 
been Great Britain's traditional policy with regard to her 
colonies, the protectionist idea was growing, especially in the 
nations that seemed far behind in industrial and commercial 
competition. As a result of the inaction of the Berlin confer- 
ence on this matter, an exclusive and selfish policy accom- 
panied the acquirement of colonies; it led to endless embitter- 
ment in international affairs, and was a main cause back of 
the great World War that began in 1914. 



292 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



Germany had no possessions outside of Europe before the 
rise of the new imperialism. Bismarck does not seem to have 
cared much for colonies, for his interests had been necessarily 
centered on continental politics. Before the Franco-Prus- 




sian War he expressed himself as believing that colonial ac- 
tivity was a field for private enterprise only. Even after the 
defeat of France, when asked to take colonies as part of the 
indemnity, he refused on the ground that they were of use 
simply for providing offices. Indeed, a number of protector- 
ates that were offered to Germany by various native chiefs 
in the seventies were refused. 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 293 

About 1882 Bismarck began to change his mind. During 
this decade Germany was entering on a protectionist pol- 
icy and, in addition, a large German emigration to foreign 
states led to uneasiness, for the new national conscious- 
ness regretted the permanent loss of emigrating Germans. 
Probably as important a cause as any was the rapid acqui- 
sition of territories by other states at this time. There 
should be added to these influences the cumulative effect of 
the wishes of ardent German advocates of colonies — espe- 
cially of merchants who had sought for some time to inter- 
est the Government in their business undertakings. In 
1881 a German Colonial Society was formed; it was fol- 
lowed in 1884 by a Society for German Colonization. These 
and other organizations revealed the restlessness of Ger- 
mans in view of the rapid enlargement of existing colonial 
empires. 

In 1882 a Bremen merchant, F. A. L. Luderitz, bought 
territory in what later became German South-West Africa. 
Bismarck promised him the protection of the Government, 
and in 1884 the new territory was declared a protectorate. 
The British public did not accept with grace this initial step 
in the building of a German colonial Empire, and resentment 
was aroused in Germany in consequence. In order to forestall 
a German connection with the Boers of the Transvaal the 
British Empire acquired Bechuanaland at this time. In 
1884 a Dr. Nachtigal, under the guise of investigating Ger- 
man commercial conditions in equatorial Africa, annexed 
Togoland and the Cameroons. British feeling was aroused 
more than ever by this act, especially when it became known 
that the British in 1876 had refused to accept a protectorate 
of the Cameroons when the native chiefs asked for it. From 
now on Bismarck was committed to an aggressive colonial 
policy. Shortly after the African territories were taken an 
expedition was sent to New Guinea (north of Australia). 
This caused further tension with Great Britain, as an inter- 
colonial congress in Sydney, in session at that time, wished 
New Guinea to become British territory. 

After the conference at Berlin, relations with Britain be- 



294 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

came better. An arrangement was effected with Great Brit- 
ain by which Germany obtained large possessions in north- 
eastern New Guinea, and also received the Bismarck Archi- 
pelago. It was at that juncture in the development of the 
German Empire that Gladstone made his famous statement 
in Parliament: "If Germany is to become a colonizing Power, 
all I say is, 'God speed her. ' " German East Africa was ob- 
tained in 1886, and by the end of this decade the Marshall 
Islands and a number of adjacent groups in the Pacific had 
been added to the growing Empire. When Spain was de- 
feated by the United States at the close of the century, the 
remainder of the Spanish islands in the Pacific were sold to 
Germany. At this time Germany received part of Samoa as 
well, and leased on a long term from China the port of Kiao- 
chau on the Shantung Peninsula. A new colonial empire 
had come into being, backed by an aggressive colonizing in- 
terest, a strong belief in protection, and a marvelously devel- 
oping industry and commerce. 

Italy had been slow in exerting influence outside of Europe 
for the same reason that German colonizing efforts had been 
retarded — a late unification. In the eighties, however, the 
new imperialism appealed as much to Italians as to Germans. 
The Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria of 1879 was 
made a Triple Alliance in 1882 by the entry of Italy. This 
strange combination of Austria and Italy is to be explained 
by the deep resentment caused in Rome as a result of the 
French absorption of Tunis; the Italians felt that this terri- 
tory, lying nearest to Italian Sicily, should have been theirs. 
Shortly after the Berlin Conference, the coast of Eritrea (on 
the Red Sea) was occupied. In the early nineties Crispi 
planned a great Italian Empire in that part of Africa, which 
was to include Abyssinia. But this sturdy native govern- 
ment soundly defeated the Italian expedition, and Abyssinia 
was left a free country. Italy has since held the African 
coast to the southeast, known as "Italian Somaliland." In 
1911 a war was waged against Turkey by which Italy ac- 
quired Tripoli — renamed Libya — and the Dodecanese off 
southwest Asia Minor. Italian efforts to become a great 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 295 

Power in the colonial field as well as in other ways have been 
hampered by financial resources that do not at all correspond 
to Italian ambitions. 

Even the United States was swung into the imperialistic 
maelstrom. Her professed policy of isolation, made at the 
outset of the country's history, had been adhered to without 
difficulty. The Monroe Doctrine tended to keep the United 
States out of European politics, while the internal develop- 
ment of the West more than absorbed excess energy and 
capital. By the close of the century, however, the frontier 
had been pushed to the Pacific. Yet when the opportunity 
occurred of obtaining the Hawaiian Islands in the early 
nineties, it was not accepted. But in 1898 came the turn- 
ing-point — the war with Spain over Cuba. As a result Spain 
lost to the United States the Philippines, Porto Rico, and 
Guam, and Cuba came under the paternal protection of the 
great Republic. At the same time the United States annexed 
the Hawaiian Islands and two islands in the Samoan group, 
including the best harbor in the southern Pacific. American 
isolation had become a thing of the past. 

A NEW INTEKEST 

When the partition of non-European countries began to 
move forward so rapidly about 1885, Great Britain was the 
one state with a widely spread dominion containing highly 
civilized states alongside of undeveloped possessions. 

As soon as the colonizing tendencies in other nations found 
a rapid realization in the "boom" of the eighties, the British 
became apprehensive. They naturally feared the growth of 
dominions that would endanger the safety of what we have 
found was heretofore a British monopoly. There was some 
justification in this, as British traders were carrying on busi- 
iness and British missionaries were doing their work in many 
sections of the world as yet unappropriated. Before the rush 
for colonies began in 1884, the British Empire had had many 
opportunities to establish protectorates over native peoples 
in Africa and elsewhere. But these requests of native chiefs 
had often been refused. It is easy to understand why the 



296 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

British Empire should feel a certain paternal relation, for ex* 
ample, in the Cameroons and Nigeria, even if a protectorate 
were not definitely established. Further apprehension arose 
from the probable cutting off of commercial relations with 
portions of Asia and Africa, should they be occupied by rival 
European states with a protective system. 

Great Britain showed hesitation in entering into the 
scramble for new territory. In fact, during the past half- 
century the British had unwillingly added to their colonial 
burdens. Feeling in South Africa and Australia, however, 
was strongly in favor of a forward movement. Thus Great 
Britain joined the others in the partition of the unclaimed 
parts of Asia and Africa and the islands in the adjacent 
waters. 

In Africa trouble occurred with Germany over South-West 
Africa, and although the British lost this territory, with the 
exception of Whale Bay, they added Zululand and Bechu- 
analand to their possessions in southern Africa. A further 
foothold was gained in Rhodesia (Mashonaland and Matabele- 
land). More trouble occurred with Germany in the Cam- 
eroon district. Although the British were forestalled by the 
German expedition of Dr. Nachtigal, Nigeria was taken over 
and proved to be an immensely rich region. British Somal- 
iland was added in 1884. In 1886 Germany and Great Brit- 
ain settled their spheres of influence in East Africa, and by 
the end of the decade Uganda (back of British East Africa) 
and the island of Zanzibar were brought under British suze- 
rainty. France and Britain were on the brink of war in 1898 
over the question of the Sudan, when a French expedition 
occupied Fashoda (Kodok) a few weeks before Lord Kitch- 
ener came to claim the territory for Great Britain. The ten- 
sion was relieved by the Anglo-French Agreement of 1899, 
by which France gave up all claims to this region in return for 
a recognition of French control in Tunis. French interest in 
northwestern Africa was again indicated when they acquired 
Morocco early in the twentieth century. 

During these years considerable territory was added to the 
Empire in the Far East, as well. In 1885 Upper Burma was 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 297 

annexed. As a result of German and British rivalry in New 
Guinea, the eastern part of the island was divided between 
the two Powers. Large parts of the island of Borneo (North 
Borneo, Brunei, and Sarawak) became imperial possessions in 
this decade. Just at the close of the century Weihaiwei (on 
the tip of the Shantung Peninsula) was leased from China as 
" compensation " for the German lease of Kiao-chau and the 
Russian lease of Port Arthur. 

Certainly Great Britain was not behind the other nations 
in snatching up non-European lands during the years after 
the new imperialism began. The British Empire possessed 
the largest colonial dominion in 1881; this Empire grew 
more swiftly than any of its rivals during the rapid colonial 
expansion that followed. Over a million square miles of 
the earth's surface became definitely British in the last two 
decades of Victoria's reign. It was but natural that there 
should be a greatly increased interest in the enlarged 
dominions, including a special interest in their defense, 
their organization, and their unity. Misunderstandings and 
ill feeling were inevitable, especially with Germany and 
France. It has been stated that relations with France were 
better after 1899. The same cannot be said of Germany. 
Its extreme aggressiveness and confidence, its marked im- 
portance in the business world, its naval program, all made 
the British suspicious of this new rival. 1 

The new British imperial enthusiasm was most notably ex-^ 
pressed by a series of colonial conferences. In 1887 Victoria 
and the Empire celebrated the fiftieth year of her reign at a 
time when the colonial interest was strong. A great Thanks- 
giving service was held on June 21st in Westminster, and in 
July there was an elaborate naval review at Spithead. Most 
important of all was the meeting in April and May of a con- 
ference containing representatives from Britain's colonies as 
well as from the home Government. Numerous matters of 



1 The historian, Treitschke, who died in 1896, did not improve matters by 
his outspoken belief that a clash of interests between Great Britain and Ger- 
many was "inevitable." It was his advice that Germany adopt an "inde- 
pendent colonial policy" and come, if necessary, to a reckoning with Britain. 



/- 



298 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

importance were discussed, colonial defense taking much of 
the attention of the conference. 1 

Ten years later, in 1897, the sixtieth anniversary of Vic- 
toria's reign was celebrated in an even grander manner. The 
premiers of all the self-governing colonies and representatives 
from the Crown colonies discussed colonial problems. The 
self-governing colonies showed great interest in the unity 
of the Empire; the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid 
Laurier, expressed the loyalty of Canada in a way that was 
very impressive. The introduction in the next year of penny 
postage between the British Isles and most of the colonies 
helped to bring the Empire closer together. This Confer- 
ence of 1897 may also be regarded as marking the beginning 
of a trend toward a protectionist policy for the Empire. A 
third Colonial Conference was held in 1902, and thereafter 
the meetings were periodical. 2 

The survey made in the foregoing pages of the reign of 
Queen Victoria should impress the student of British expan- 
sion with the almost totally new situation that had arisen 
by the opening of the twentieth century. During this reign 
British possessions had grown marvelously, amounting in 
grand total in 1900 to one quarter of the land surface of the 
globe. Self-government had been granted the most advanced 
portions of the Empire, and interest in the large British world 
had become keen. Already federation was a subject of dis- 
cussion. Over against the British Empire stood, in 1900, 
rival powers with world-dominions and with an equal interest 
in the growth of commerce and trade for the benefit of their 
respective countries. Practically all the world had been 
brought under some sort of European influence. The British 
Empire faced, in consequence, a definite challenge. As we 
proceed to survey the fortunes of the various parts of the 
British dominions in recent years, this new and complicated 

1 Charles Dilke's Problems of Greater Britain, published three years later, 
reflects this paramount interest. After a lengthy discussion of imperial de- 
fense he concludes: "It is difficult to view without anxiety the military situa- 
tion of an Empire so little compact, and so difficult, in consequence, to defend" 
(p. 698). 

2 For a more extended treatment of the Colonial Conferences reference 
should be made to chapter xxiv. • 



IMPERIAL INTERESTS OF VICTORIAN AGE 299 

world-situation must be kept in mind as an essential part of 
the picture. 

This new feeling of anxiety for the " far-flung battle line" 
and the consequent need for united action was phrased in un- 
forgettable fashion by Rudyard Kipling in his poem of "The 
Houses (A Song of the Dominions) " written in the year after 
the Diamond Jubilee: 

'Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, 
In thy house or my house is half the world's hoard; 
By my house and thy house hangs all the world's fate, 
On thy house and my house lies half the world's hate. 

For thy house and my house no help shall we find 
Save thy house and my house — kin cleaving to kind; 
If my house be taken, thine tumbleth anon. 
: If thy house be forfeit, mine followeth soon. 1 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



Reference for this period should be made to the treatment of the reign of 
Queen Victoria in the various histories of nineteenth-century Britain. 
Volumes of value, already listed, are Egerton's Origin and Growth of English 
* Colonies, The British Empire — Past, Present, and Future, and the volumes 
on colonial policy given in the Bibliographical Note to chapter xi. A 
treatment of the newer colonial interest is that of Ramsay Muir, The Ex- 
pansion of Europe — The Culmination of Modern History (London, 1917). 
For Germany, see W. H. Dawson, The German Empire, 1867-1914, and the 
Unity Movement (2 vols., New York, 1919), and for German activity in 
Africa, A. F. Calvert, The German African Empire (London, 1916), and 
Evan Lewin, The Germans in Africa (London, 1915). For the partition of 
Africa see the works of Sir Harry Johnston, A History of the Colonization of 
Africa by Alien Races (Cambridge, 1913), and the briefer survey in the 
"Home University Library," The Opening Up of Africa; J. Scott Keltie, 
The Partition of Africa (2d ed., London, 1895); Sir E. Hertslet, The Map 
of Africa by Treaty (3 vols., 3d ed., London, 1909). A valuable study of 
the colonial conference held at Berlin in 1884-85 and of the Congo Free 
State is that of A. B. Keith, The Belgian Congo and the Berlin Act (Oxford, 
1919). 

Important contemporary works are Seeley, Expansion of England 
(1883), Dilke, Problems of Greater Britain (1890), C. W. Dilke and Spenser 
Wilkinson, Imperial Defence (1892), and Earl Grey, The Colonial Policy of 
Lord John Russell's Administration (2 vols., London, 1852). The last- 
named work is of especial value; in thirteen letters written as though justi- 
fying his actions as Colonial Secretary in the eyes of the Prime Minister, 

1 Rudyard Kipling's Verse, New York, 1919, p. 204. 



300 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Earl Grey surveys the whole oversea Empire for the exceedingly important 
years of Lord John Russell's administration (1846-52). Sir John Seeley's 
The Growth of British Policy, published posthumously in 1895, was in- 
tended to be an introduction to an elaborate account of British expansion. 
Much insight into the period is to be obtained through the biographies 
of leading British statesmen of the time. Notable for this purpose are 
John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (2 vols., London, 1908) ; 
Spencer Walpole, The Life of Lord John Russell (2 vols., London, 1891); 
W. F. Monypenny and G. E. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield (6 vols., New York, 1910-20); and Stephen Gwynn and Ger- 
trude M. Tuckwell, The Life of the Right Honorable Sir Charles W. Dilke 
2 vols., New York, 1917). 



CHAPTER XVIII 

MODERN INDIA 

In the previous chapter the Victorian Age has been reviewed 
from the standpoint of colonial matters as a whole. We 
have discovered a remarkable increase in imperial feeling and 
in the desire for expansion during the later years of Victoria's 
reign. It was but the prelude to a feverish energy displayed 
in the early twentieth century. With this chapter we shall 
begin a survey of the great British dominions as they have 
taken on their modern character under the imperial impulses 
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

It seems natural that India should be studied first. It 
was the most important of the possessions of the old colonial 
system. Its government was much less democratic than 
that of the other great imperial divisions, and progression to 
the more democratic parts of the Empire might well start 
with India. The possessions in southern Asia also serve to 
reveal most of the difficulties the British have faced in those 
colonial holdings where the Anglo-Saxon is not dominant 
racially. Because of India's size and its very great popula- 
tion, it also ushers before us questions that put this great 
dependency into a class by itself. A prominent student of 
modern British tendencies has declared: "The first and 
greatest of all the problems of Empire is the problem of In- 
dia." 1 Lord Morley, Secretary of State for India from 1905 
to 1910, has said of this possession: "The five years that I 
passed as head of the India Office marked an arduous mo- 
ment in what is, and must remain, the most delicate of im- 
perial problems." 2 

FOREIGN POLICY 

-' The history of British rule in India has been traced as far 
as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Largely as the result of dis- 

1 Slater, The Making of Modern England, p. 276. 

2 Recollections, u, 149. '' 



302 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

content aroused by the vigorous imperialism and the want 
of tact of the energetic Dalhousie, the sepoys rose in revolt. 
Only after a fearful loss of life was the Mutiny suppressed. 
It gave the opportunity and pointed to the necessity for a 
closer control of the government of India. As a result, the 
East India Company ceased to exist and India was brought 
directly under the Crown. 

By the Act for the Better Government of India, passed in 
1858, India was to be controlled through a Secretary of State 
assisted by a Council. The Governor-General was given 
the title of Viceroy to indicate the new relation to the Crown, 
but the former title continued in common use. He was as- 
sisted by his Council or cabinet, and official pronouncements 
were issued in the name of the Governor-General-in-Council. 
In 1861 a further act provided for a Legislative Council. 
This body included certain non-official, nominated members 
from the native and European elements of the Empire of 
India in addition to the Governor-General and Executive 
Council. Just about the same time the law courts were re- 
organized and the civilian and penal codes were established. 

The first Viceroy was Lord Canning. He had succeeded 
Dalhousie before the outbreak of the Mutiny. Although 
he wished for a peaceful administration, none was ever 
more stormy and taxing. By almost superhuman efforts he 
brought British rule safely through this critical period and 
reestablished something like confidence in the British admin- 
istration. This was done in several ways. The clemency 
which he advocated was welcomed in India, if derided in 
Great Britain. His assurance that Dalhousie's Doctrine of 
Lapse was abolished increased confidence in the British Gov- 
ernment. Lord Canning was earnestly interested, also, in 
promoting the welfare of the people. He made great efforts 
to protect agriculture as well as to reorganize the codes of 
law, the police organization, and the army. One of the most 
noteworthy of the acts of Canning's regime was the estab- 
lishment of the three universities of Calcutta, Bombay, and 
Madras on the plan of Oxford and Cambridge. 

The second Viceroy was Lord Elgin, whose name has al- 



MODERN INDIA 303 

ready become known to us by his farseeing work in Canada 
where his interest in the progress of responsible government 
had set the standard for the Empire as a whole. 1 Lord Elgin, 
who came to India in 1862, left no imprint on the Indian 
administration, as he died within a year. 

In 1864 Sir John Lawrence, famous for his work in the 
Punjab, became the third Viceroy. He had the advantage 
over most of his predecessors and successors of long service in 
India and an intimate knowledge of its complex life. In his 
first durbar at Lahore he was able to address the assembled 
princes and chiefs in their own tongue. During the remain- 
der of the decade he administered his difficult office with 
credit. He was restrained in his foreign policy; in connec- 
tion with the perennial frontier question of the northwest he 
was an advocate of "masterful inactivity." Sir John Law- 
rence had to combat a tendency toward an aggressive im- 
perialism, which was already being expressed by such influ- 
ential men as Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of Bombay, 
and Sir Henry Rawlinson, the famous Assyriologist. 

In 1869 Lord Mayo became the Governor-General. In his 
foreign policy there was an adherence to the principles on 
which Sir John Lawrence had acted — the establishment of a 
ring of friendly and independent kingdoms on the frontiers. 
As he expressed it: "We should establish with our frontier 
states of Khelat, Afghanistan, Yarkand, Nepal, and Burma, 
intimate relations of friendship. . . . We should thus create 
in them outworks of our Empire and, by assuring them that 
the days of annexation are passed, make them know that 
they have everything to gain and nothing to lose by endea- 
voring to deserve our favor and respect." 2 Lord Mayo was 
not so successful in his internal administration as in his 
peaceful foreign policy; there was a marked increase in the 
burdens laid upon the people. Yet his great personal energy 
and influence left a strong impression. Lord Mayo's rule 
was brought to an untimely end by his assassination in the 
Andaman Islands; while visiting this penal settlement in 
1872 he was stabbed by a convict. 

1 See pp. 228-29. 2 Quoted in Dutt, India in the Victorian Age, p. 254. 



304 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The policy of peace so consistently followed by Canning 
and his immediate successors was continued by Lord North- 
brook, the Viceroy from 1872 to 1876. During this period 
an opportunity came for proving the sincerity of Canning's 
announcement that the annexation of native states had 
ceased. The Gaekwar of Baroda was accused of an attempt 
on the life of the British Resident; he was also quite unfit to 
rule. After a fair trial he was dethroned, but the state of 
Baroda did not become British territory, as might have hap- 
pened before 1858. Instead, a young boy of the ruling 
house was put on the throne — a ruler who has proved to 
be one of the most enlightened and devoted of the native 
princes. A further proof that Britain's attitude in this case 
was a settled policy was given in 1881 during the viceroyship 
of Lord Ripon. The great state of Mysore in the south had 
been administered by the British since 1831. It was here 
that Haidar Ali and his son Tipu caused the British so much 
trouble at the close of the eighteenth century. The ancient 
dynasty had been replaced in power in 1799, but misrule led 
to a British administration from 1831 to 1881. The return 
of this large state to the Maharaja in 1881 did much to 
create confidence in the sincerity of British pledges. 

With the opening of the last quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the "urge" of imperialism became very strong. In the 
preceding chapter we have taken note of the causes for this 
change. The unification of Germany in 1871, Russia's dis- 
regard of the Black Sea Treaty, and the new crisis in the rela- 
tions of Russia and Turkey, all created distrust in the minds 
of British statesmen. The route to India was safeguarded by 
the purchase of the Suez Canal shares in 1875, but it seemed 
to be endangered by the probable break-up of the Ottoman 
Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. The advance of 
Russia in Asia was keenly watched during these years by 
Great Britain. Sir Henry Rawlinson, who had spent much 
of his life in Asia, published his England and Russia in the 
East in 1875. The book, as a revelation and a warning, had 
a wide reading. The immediate question for India seemed 
to be the safety of its northwestern frontier. Afghanistan 



MODERN INDIA 305 

became of prime interest at this time and the policy of "mas- 
terful inactivity" ceased when the second Disraeli adminis- 
tration came to office in 1874; a restless imperialism replaced 
the former policy. 1 India, already overburdened, found ad- 
ditional drains on her slender resources in order that the 
British hold on the peninsula might remain secure. 

Lord Northbrook resigned in 1876 when asked to interfere 
in Afghanistan with the intention of establishing a permanent 
mission there. He was replaced by Lord Lytton. Disraeli 
gave his reason for the change when he informed Lord Lytton 
why he was chosen as Viceroy: "The critical state of affairs in 
Central Asia demands a statesman." 2 

Disraeli's imperialism found a significant, if somewhat 
melodramatic, expression in the proclamation of Queen Vic- 
toria as Empress of India in 1876. The advance in the Far 
East, however, serves as a better illustration of the temper of 
the new cabinet in London. An envoy was sent to Kabul, 
the capital of Afghanistan, in 1876. On his rebuff by the 
Amir, who feared a permanent mission was to be established, 
expensive preparations were made for advance along the 
frontier. This was done in the face of one of the worst fam- 
ines India has had to bear, that of 1877. In the next year a 
Russian mission reached Kabul. This was enough to urge 
Lord Lytton to the action demanded of a "statesman." A 
war was waged for the "rectification of the boundary and a 
scientific frontier." After a successful invasion a mission 
was located at Kabul, but in 1879 the British agent was mur- 
dered. After more hostilities the lesson, that the best policy 
was to leave Afghanistan alone, was relearned. The British 
were more successful in Baluchistan, where an increasing con- 
trol was being exercised during this decade. 

The short Liberal reaction under Lord Ripon (1880-84) 
was succeeded by a continuance of the expansionist policy 
under Lord Dufferin. During his governor-generalship Up- 
per Burma was conquered at the expense of India. There 
was no particular danger on the northeastern frontier, even 
though France was becoming interested in Tonkin and Co- 

1 See pp. 287 ff. 2 Dutt, op. cit., p. 420. 



306 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

chin China. The explanation of advance on this border is 
found in the feverish spirit that characterized all the great 
European nations during the eighties, although there was 
some cause for discontent inthe hindrances to trade in Burma 
as a result of the rule of the tyrannical King Theebaw and 
his Queen. 

About the same time Afghanistan again became impor- 
tant. War was nearly precipitated between Great Britain 
and Russia when the Russians attacked an Afghan frontier 
post at Penjdeh. This scare resulted in increased military 
measures for the protection of India. An expensive rail- 
way was built to allow greater access to the frontier. The 
offer of military assistance by some of the native rulers dur- 
ing the period of the Penjdeh scare resulted in the establish- 
ment of the Imperial Service troops, contingents of which 
have been in existence in the native states ever since. A 
boundary commission was appointed to decide on the line 
separating the Russian territories from those of Afghanistan. 
By the Durand Agreement of 1893 a definite boundary was 
fixed between India and Afghanistan as well. It brought 
wild native tribes under British control and border wars oc- 
curred in consequence in 1895 and 1897. 

Lord Curzon's viceroyship (1898-1905) was notable for 
further active interest in the northwestern frontier. Garri- 
sons were withdrawn from stations where trouble was likely 
to occur, and the Northwest Province was established as a 
buffer. In 1901 the Amir of Afghanistan, who had ruled 
efficiently for twenty years, died; he was succeeded by Habi- 
bullah Khan, who governed the country until his assassina- 
tion at the close of the Great World War. Since the dis- 
patch of Sir Lewis Dane's mission to Kabul in 1904, as a 
result of Russian advances, there has been little trouble with 
Afghanistan. 

In 1907 a convention was signed between Great Britain 
and Russia, by which the position of Afghanistan was 
definitely determined. Russia agreed that this state was in 
Great Britain's sphere of influence and that communication 
between the Governments of Russia and Afghanistan should 



MODERN INDIA 307 

be made through Great Britain. England agreed not to an- 
nex or occupy any part of Afghanistan and to allow Russia 
full rights of trade in this border country. This policy has 
happily prevented a recurrence of the military disasters 
which Great Britain's relations with Afghanistan have 
twice illustrated. The collapse of the Romanoff rule dur- 
ing the World War and the repudiation of the Agreement of 
1907 by the succeeding Government has freed this border 
state from the pressure of imperialistic Russia. If Russia 
does not reestablish her control in the territories north of Af- 
ghanistan, this frontier state will cease to have a significance 
as one of the " shields of India," and the policy of non-inter- 
ference adopted in 1907 will prove the most effective way of 
keeping the peace. The relations between India and Af- 
ghanistan were the subject of further negotiation in 1921; 
this time it was not an agreement between two nations inter- 
ested in this border state. Instead, the Dobbs Mission nego- 
tiated for Great Britain a treaty with Afghanistan, in which 
a notable step was taken, for Afghanistan was recognized as a 
fully grown independent state with a Minister in London. If 
the provisions for the removal of suspicion and difficulty re- 
garding the Afghan frontier prove effective, it will mean 
much for the future of India. 

During Lord Curzon's governorship of India the British 
became interested in Tibet for much the same reason that 
had led to interference in Afghanistan. This high and almost 
inaccessible plateau under the nominal influence of China was 
coveted by Russia early in the twentieth century, and Great 
Britain became worried over the northeastern Indian fron- 
tier. An expedition was sent to Lhasa under Colonel Young- 
husband in 1904. After needless slaughter of the Tibetans, 
China agreed to prevent the intervention of any other power 
in Tibet. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 restated 
the position of Tibet as a Chinese territory, although Great 
Britain was recognized as having a special interest in this 
Chinese possession. When the revolution occurred in China, 
affairs in Tibet were again upset. It has since been practi- 
cally self-governing, though Great Britain preserves a keen 



308 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

interest in this border state by means of which India is ap- 
proached from the northeast. 

THE EMPIRE OF INDIA 

We have seen that foreign policy has been very important 
as a result of the fear of Russia. The Viceroys have been 
primarily interested in this phase of the administration; of 
the various departments of the Government the cabinet 
members have taken charge of Home Affairs, the Legislative, 
the Army, Revenue and Agriculture, Commerce and Indus- 
try, and Education, but the portfolio of Foreign Affairs has 
usually been retained by the Governor-General. In the sur- 
vey of modern India it is natural to pass from frontier prob- 
lems to a study of the interior of the great Empire in which 
Britain has been so deeply interested. On the northern bor- 
ders are the two semi-independent states of Nepal and Bhu- 
tan. They are not considered a part of India, but are bound 
in a close way to the Indian Government. Nepal has a Brit- 
ish Resident, and Bhutan has felt British pressure in con- 
nection with the misrule of its Maharaja. Of the near-by 
islands, Ceylon is a separate colony, but the Nicobar and 
Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal and the Laccadive 
Islands in the Indian Ocean are under the Indian adminis- 
tration. The Government of India has also included under 
its jurisdiction the port of Aden and its dependencies on the 
route to the Suez Canal. 1 British interests in the Persian 
Gulf have also been nta^agedJSy the Indian Government. 

In turning to continental India we find a vast, compli- 
cated, and thickly peopled part of the British Empire. It 
has a population of over three hundred and twenty million, 
comprising nearly one half of the population of Asia and one 
sixth of that of the globe. The inhabitants are not homo- 
geneous; over two hundred vernacular languages of great 
variety are spoken in the peninsula; and numerous racial 
and religious differences exist. There are over two hundred 
million Hindus, about sixty million Mohammedans, and ten 
million Buddhists and, in addition, large numbers of Sikhs, 

1 For their present status see chapter xx. 



MODERN INDIA 309 

Parsis, Jains, Christians, and Jews, as well as followers of 
the primitive animistic cults. So complicated is the human 
life of the peninsula that it is impossible to think of this 
teeming center of population as having a linguistic or racial 
bond capable of making it a unit. 

Politically, the peninsula is composed of two great groups. 
The parts directly under British control consist of fifteen 
provincial governments scattered in various parts of India. 
The eight important provinces are ruled by Governors. 
These eight districts have Legislative Councils similar to 
that of the Governor-General. Burma is under a Lieuten- 
ant-Governor and the remaining British districts are con- 
trolled by Chief Commissioners. More than one half of the 
territory and four fifths of the population are contained in 
these parts which are directly under British rule. 

The remainder of peninsular India is made up of native 
states. Ever since the British came to trade in the seven- 
teenth century, there has existed the problem of the relation 
of the Company and later of the Crown to the native govern- 
ments. At times an active annexationist policy has brought 
many of these states under British rule. But the process was 
not completed when Great Britain felt the need of respecting 
the interests of the native states. To-day there are over six 
hundred of these native governments. Many, of course, are 
very small. The most important are Kashmir in the north, 
Bikaner, Jaipur, Baroda, Indore, Udaipur, and Gwalior in 
the west-central section, and Haidarabad, Mysore, and Tra- 
vancore in the south. The greatest of these states, Haidara- 
bad, is larger than England and Scotland combined and has a 
population of over thirteen millions. 

The relation of the native states to British India is not un- 
like the relation of a subject-state in the feudal system of 
mediaeval Europe. They are not independent so far as for- 
eign policy is concerned, for British Residents watch over the 
interests of the central Government, and in some of the 
smaller states the Resident practically governs in the name 
of the hereditary prince. A lawless ruler may be deposed, as 
we have found to be the case in the state of Baroda. A lim- 



/ 



310 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ited military establishment may be kept by a native ruler; 
since the days of Lord Dufferin these contingents have been 
known as Imperial Service Troops. In the larger and better 
governed states the native ruler enjoys a great measure of un- 
restricted control. Some of them, such as the Gaekwar of 
Baroda, the Nizam of Haidarabad, the Maharaja of Gwalior, 
and the Maharaja of Bikaner, are notable and efficient rulers. 1 
The native states tend to be more backward than the prov- 
inces of British India. Nor is there, on the whole, so intelli- 
gent an expenditure of the public monies as in the provinces. 
The need of keeping up the local court naturally diverts funds 
that might otherwise go to the improving of the condition of 
the natives. In these states, " scattered like so many islands 
of varying size in the sea of British India," there is a diversity, 
and yet amid this diversity there seems to be a strong attach- 
ment to the British Crown. The compromising yet practical 
quality of the British imperial mind, which has been wittily 
characterized as an "uncontrollable instinct for the anoma- 
lous," is nowhere better illustrated than in the complexities 
existing in India. 

NATIONALISM AND REFORM 

The twentieth century has brought to the British increas- 
ing trouble in India. Since 1905 there has been an insistent 
demand for reform. The immediate occasion was the parti- 
tion of Bengal in 1905 during the rule of Lord Curzon. The 
educated Hindus felt that the partition was an effort to 
weaken whatever national, religious, and political feeling ex- 
isted in Bengal. Since that time the Viceroys, Earl Minto, 
Lord Hardinge, Lord Chelmsford, and Lord Reading, have 
had the problem of " unrest" continually before them. 

The movement originated as far back as 1885, with the 
meeting of the first Indian National Congress at Bombay. 
Year after year at Christmas-time this great meeting has 
given expression to the aspirations of Indians. The move- 
ment received greater impetus in the twentieth century, when 

1 His Highness, the Maharaja of Bikaner, was one of the representatives of 
India at the Peace Conference that met at Versailles in 1919. 



MODERN INDIA 311 

the peoples of other Asiatic countries began to come to na- 
tional self-consciousness. The Young Turk movement, the 
Persian efforts for independent government, the remarkable 
success of the Japanese in world-politics, the Chinese nation- 
alist movement, the strong patriotic sentiment among the 
Siamese, all gave the educated Indians encouragement. As 
Lord Morley has well stated it: "The danger arose from a 
mutiny, not of sepoys about greased cartridges, but of edu- 
cated men armed with modern ideas." The educated In- 
dians were thoroughly dissatisfied with the British use of In- 
dia and the restraint put on the native desire for political 
opportunities. Notable among the Extremist leaders were 
B. G. Tilak and Lajpat Rai. 

During the first years of the Earl of Minto's viceroyship 
(1905-10) the "unrest" did not take violent form. The 
Hindus had found an opportunity for expressing their wishes 
in the National Congress year after year. The Mohamme- 
dans, over sixty million strong, organized the All Moslem 
League in 1906 to press their particular interests. More 
violent measures soon followed. By 1907 an extreme nihil- 
ist group, wanting nothing short of freedom from British 
rule, had begun to find expression. In that year the first 
shot was fired, and in 1908 bombs began to be used. In 
1909 a bomb was thrown at Lord and Lady Minto, and three 
years later an attempt was made on the life of the next 
Viceroy, Lord Hardinge. There was also in operation dur- 
ing this time the Swadeshi movement for the boycott of 
British goods. As an answer to these forms of violence the 
Government invoked more severe laws, such as the Explo- 
sives Act, the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act, and 
the Criminal Law Amendment Act. 1 

Had the "unrest" been primarily a violent, nihilistic, 
separatist movement, Great Britain might have taken still 
stronger measures to protect her rule in India, and might 
have ignored the demands of the natives. But the great ma- 
jority of the leaders have not been Extremists. Men of 
prominence, such as the late G. K. Gokhale, the Aga Khan, 

1 For domestic disturbances in India since 1914 see Chapter xxv. 



312 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

and Romesh Dutt, have been severe critics of the British 
regime. Yet they have been fully aware of the debt of India 
to Britain and the need for continued British leadership. 

Great Britain has been inclined to make concessions to 
these demands, even though such concessions have come 
haltingly. In 1907 Lord Morley, then Secretary of State, 
appointed two Indians to his Council, and a Hindu barrister 
became a member of the Governor-General's Council for the 
first time in 1909. The governmental attitude was well ex- 
pressed in a proclamation made by King Edward to the 
"Peoples and Princes of India" on the fiftieth anniversary 
of the change of government from the hands of the East 
India Company to those of the Crown. He reminded them 
of Queen Victoria's earnest interest in India, and then pro- 
ceeded to tell of what the future would hold in store. "From 
the first, the principle of representative institutions began to 
be gradually introduced, and the time has come when, in the 
judgment of my Viceroy and Governor-General and others 
of my counsellors, that principle may be prudently extended. 
Important classes among you, representing ideas that have 
been fostered and encouraged by British rule, claim equality 
of citizenship and a greater share in legislation and govern- 
ment. ... I will not speak of the measures that are now being 
diligently framed for these objects. They will speedily be 
made known to you and will, I am confident, mark a notable 
stage in the beneficent progress of your affairs." * 

The measure to which the King referred was the Indian 
Councils Act of 1909. By this act an electorate of some 
thirty thousand was provided, by which additional members 
were chosen for the Legislative Councils. A majority of non- 
official members was allowed in the provincial councils, but 
the Government was unwilling to lose official control of the 
Governor-General's Council. This central Council was made 
to consist of sixty-eight members, twenty-five of whom were 
elected. The choice was so arranged that there was certain 
to be an official majority of three. These legislative bodies, 
though representing but a small fraction of the people of 

1 The Proclamation is given in Lord Morley's Recollections, u, 371. 



MODERN INDIA 313 

India, gave a chance for wider discussion and for criticism of 
the Government. 

Lord Chelmsford became Viceroy in 1916 after the opening 
of the World War. The situation in India was precarious. 
Germany evidently expected the Extremists to cause con- 
siderable trouble, but, except for some trouble in Bengal 
and the Punjab, her expectations were not fulfilled. India 
proved, on the whole, as loyal to Britain as other parts of the 
Empire. The desire to retain the good-will of India and to 
meet the continuous demand for a further grant leading 
toward responsible government led Great Britain to take 
further steps for reform. An elaborate investigation and 
report was made, culminating in the Montagu-Chelmsford 
reforms, which went into effect with the passing of the Gov- 
ernment of India Act in December, 1919. 

Considerable concessions were made. The nine provinces 
having Legislative Councils were the ones affected by this 
Act. The electorate was increased from thirty thousand to 
over five million — about two and one third per cent of the 
total population of these nine provinces. In the provincial 
legislative councils it was provided that there was to be in- 
dependence in certain " transferred subjects" — local self- 
government, public health, education, etc. But the Gov- 
ernor still retained the control of legislation. Some changes 
were made in the Governor-General's Council; the number 
of members was increased to one hundred and twenty, but 
the Council was given no real power in the essential matter 
of finance. No proposal for appropriations could be made 
except on the recommendation of the Governor-General. 
Moreover, the Legislative Council was not granted permis- 
sion to vote on or discuss certain parts of the budget save by 
the Viceroy's permission, and if the Council refuses to con- 
sent to a grant the Governor-General may, if he regards it 
as essential, act as if it had been assented to. 

The reforms of 1919 are but a step in the process of making 
India a self-governing colony. The new Act provided for a 
reconsideration of Indian Government in ten years, with a 
view to further reform at that time. In spite of this provi- 



314 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

sion, the concessions made in this measure have not met 
the demands of loyal Indians. His Highness, the Aga Khan, 
Dne of the foremost of the Mohammedan princes of India, 
wrote in 1918: "The Government of India needs radical 
change; the time has come when it should no more be a 
mere government of fiat, however excellent that fiat, but an 
essentially modern state based on the cooperation of every 
community and of the Government, by giving to the people 
themselves the right to direct policy." x The time will 
come, but it is probably not near at hand, when India 
will be a self-governing group of peoples. Much progress 
needs to be made before the government of India can be 
placed in the hands of its three hundred million subjects; 
certainly that is the goal toward which events in India are 
traveling. 2 

THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 

- It is impossible to consider in an adequate way the com- 
plicated life of modern India in a brief chapter such as the 
present one. Yet our attempt to visualize this great British 
possession would be incomplete if reference were not made 
to matters of finance, industry, agriculture, education, and 
social relationships. 

The attitude of Great Britain to India has seemed to its 
critics needlessly financial in its character. Ardent natives 
have felt for years that India has been exploited. In truth, 
it would not be surprising if Great Britain should seem to 
err in this way. For centuries India was in the hands of a 
great trading company. It was supposed to be fabulously 
rich, and was of interest solely as a source of wealth. Even 
after the East India Company ceased to rule, the British 
Government seemed to feel that India had almost unlimited 
powers of production. Costly wars were waged at India's 

1 India in Transition, p. 32. 

2 The new epoch of cooperation in India was inaugurated in 1920 with the 
appointment of Lord Sinha as Governor of Bihar and Orissa. For the first 
time, an Indian was appointed as head of a major provincial government. 
Lord Sinha had formerly been Under-Secretary of State for India in the Im- 
perial Cabinet, being the first Indian to bold cabinet rank. 



MODERN INDIA 315 

expense, wars that were often dictated by an imperialistic 
foreign policy rather than by the needs of the Indian Em- 
pire. 

The Indian debt stood at £57,000,000 in 1857 and was in- 
creased to nearly £100,000,000 by the Mutiny. By the mil- 
itary changes that followed £10,000,000 were added to the 
annual expenditure. An income tax was imposed at the 
time, in addition to the land tax, to meet the new demands. 
During the years of growing imperialism Indian expenditure 
was increased in connection with the troubles in Afghanistan 
and Burma. At the opening of the World War there was a 
debt of over £300,000,000, and a total annual revenue of 
nearly one third of that amount. The debt has been very 
greatly enlarged by a contribution of £100,000,000 to the 
cost of the World War; this was not a patriotic gift, but was 
made by the Government of India, which is responsible to the 
British Parliament and not to the Indian people. 1 In recent 
years nearly half of the annual revenue has been expended 
on the army, and one fourth has gone for the upkeep of the 
Indian Civil Service. The natives have sharply criticized this 
seemingly excessive drain. 

There has always been an intimate connection between the 
agricultural system and the collection of the revenue. From 
the remote centuries Indian conquerors found a tax on land 
the most convenient way of collecting toll. It is the univer- 
sal system in the East; the great majority of India's inhab- 
itants, as well as the neighboring peoples, are dependent on 
the land. Agriculture is not simply the chief industry of 
India; it is much more than that, for over two thirds of the 
population is supported by agriculture. The British have 
perpetuated the system they found. More than one fourth 
of the annual revenue comes from a tax on land. The pos- 
sibilities of the soil are carefully estimated and an assess- 
ment is made accordingly. The land settlement, as it is 
called, varies in different parts of the Empire. The older 
British holdings, chiefly in the valley of the Ganges, have a 
tenure by which large proprietors collect on the basis of a 

1 In 1920 the debt of British India was nearly £465,000,000. 



316 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

permanent settlement. The newer districts are, in general, 
under a tenure by which the petty owner of land holds a 
direct relation to the Government. 

It is unfortunate that this principal source of British rev- 
enue, agriculture, should still present so depressing a picture 
to one who examines the condition of the people of India. 
The life of the average worker in the fields is dreary indeed; 
poorly clad, underfed, and inadequately housed, the ryot has 
had no real opportunity to avoid a life of grinding and un- 
ending toil. 

No country has been more subject to the ravages of fam- 
ines and pestilence than the Indian Empire. The soil is rich 
and gives abundance in return for the labor bestowed upon 
it. In consequence, the population that is supported is great 
and dense. So dependent are multitudes of people on the 
results of agriculture that a crop failure immediately brings 
serious trouble. Unfortunately, this is just what is likely to 
happen. The intense heat of the sun is tempered by the 
heavy annual rainfalls brought by the monsoons. If the 
monsoon fails to furnish the needed moisture, as it sometimes 
does, the result is a sun-baked and fruitless land. The sun's 
intense rays are responsible also for the plague which is so 
likely to infest the country. Where standing water is found, 
the sun rapidly produces sources of disease that take a heavy 
toll indeed. Terrible famines have occurred in 1866, 1874, 
1877, 1896, and 1900. The British have made great efforts 
to prevent distress and the toll resulting from starvation and 
disease. Several commissions have examined the methods 
of relief, and the campaign against famine is well organized. 
Canals and railways have helped to make the efforts of 
famine-fighters more successful. 

The industrial life of India has been of increasing impor- 
tance, particularly since the opening of the present century. 
Silk rearing and weaving are important, but the manufac- 
ture of cotton cloth holds the most prominent place. This 
phase of India's industrial life has developed notably in and 
about the city of Bombay. The Industrial Revolution has 
been attended here with the same distressing conditions that 



MODERN INDIA 317 

occurred in Lancashire over one hundred years before. The 
growth of the cotton industry has not been unhindered, how- 
ever, for the well-established mills of Lancashire in England 
have done their best through the British Parliament to ob- 
tain favorable discrimination in their trade with India. In 
the agricultural industry, which occupies the efforts of two 
thirds of the population, the production of rice, wheat, cot- 
ton, jute, and oil seeds is important. A noteworthy part of 
India's industrial life is the tea industry, of which several 
hundred million pounds are exported every year. The large 
production of this and other foodstuffs gives India a high 
rank as a food-producing and food-exporting country. In 
the year before the World War, India sent to various parts of 
the world, though principally to the United Kingdom, food- 
stuffs to the value of £39,000,000. 

One of the most important sources of revenue in the past 
was the export of opium to China. It is a government mo- 
nopoly and the manufacture of opium has been practically 
prohibited, save in the districts of Bengal and the United 
Provinces. The revenue from this drug has been high in the 
past, but the trade in recent years has diminished as a result 
of adverse public opinion. It was the Opium War of 1840-42 
that led to the cession of Hong Kong to the British and the 
forcing of the trade in opium on China. The annual income 
on opium was about three million pounds in 1921. Another 
curious source of revenue is salt. The student is reminded of 
the Old Regime in France, where similar conditions existed 
before the days of the Revolution. Until recently the tax 
varied in different parts of India, as was the case in France 
before 1789. There is now one standard rate for the Empire. 
Although this source of revenue has been very important, it 
now contributes but a small share to the annual income. 

One of the most pressing problems facing the Indian ad- 
ministration is the matter of education. According to the 
census of 1911 five people out of every hundred were able to 
read and write in some one of the numerous languages of the 
peninsula, and five out of every thousand possessed a knowl- 
edge of English. The obstacles to a general application of 



318 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

education to the mass of the people are very great. Caste, 
the varied languages, immemorial superstition, the position 
of women, all have retarded the spread of education. Yet, 
in spite of these difficulties, the British Government has been 
severely criticized for its lack of energy in fighting the igno- 
rance of the masses. Higher education has been well devel- 
oped by means of a carefully worked-out system culminating 
in the great examining universities. Industrial education, on 
the other hand, has been sacrificed, so say England's critics, 
to the classical standards so long held at home. The annual 
expenditure of the Government on education at the opening 
of the World War was one third that given to the Civil Serv- 
ice and a quarter of the amount expended on the army. 
Strange as it may seem, the portfolio of education was not 
added to the Governor-General's Council until 1910. 

Probably no more important field of effort should com- 
mand the attention of future administrators. The appalling 
death-rate, the superstition, the insanitary conditions of life, 
the prevalence of disease, the backwardness of agriculture 
and the consequent poverty will be met and overcome only 
when the program for reform includes a strong emphasis on 
education for the present illiterate masses. 

It is undoubtedly true that British trusteeship faces its 
greatest problem in India. The benefits of British rule have 
been great indeed. Peace and order have replaced the al- 
most ceaseless warfare of the days when the weak Mogul 
dynasty held subject states under poor control. Lawlessness, 
organized murder, and gross mistreatment of women have 
given way before an impartial justice. The efficient Indian 
Civil Service has served as an avenue for the expression of the 
energy of chosen Britishers in the prime of their usefulness in 
a country sorely needing leadership. Justice and the civil 
service have been entrusted more and more to the hands of 
native officials. Railways, canals, agriculture, and industry 
have grown under British leadership. A great composite 
Empire has been put into an ordered form in a way that re- 
flects credit on British resourcefulness, ability, and interest. 
Yet much remains to be done. Guidance in tfee journey to^ 



MODERN INDIA 319 

ward self-government, the ushering of a disunited India to a 
unified interest, and the elevation of the standards of health 
are tasks for the future. For this work British leadership 
seems necessary, in order that India may be developed and 
governed for the good of the people of India by the frank, 
if gradual, substitution of partnership and cooperation for 
the old idea of ascendency. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

See the Bibliographical Notes for chapters vi, xn, and xm. P. E. Rob- 
erts has recently added to the "Historical Geography of the British Colo- 
nies" the History of India under the Government of the Crown (Oxford, 
1920). The works of Romesh Dutt give the ideas of a prominent Indian; 
they include The Economic History of British India, 1757-1837 (London, 
1902), and The Economic History of India in the Victoriar Age (3d ed., 
London, 1908). A recent Indian expression of opinion has been made by 
the Aga Khan, India in Transition, A Study of Political Evolution (London, 
1918) . An excellent volume on Indian administration is that of the French 
writer Joseph Chailley, Administrative Problems of British India (London, 
1910). The earlier phases of the dissatisfaction with the British rule are 
reviewed in Sir Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest (London, 1910). A "his- 
tory of the Nationalist movement from within" is Lajpat Rai's Young 
India (New York, 1916) ; his England's Debt to India (1918) and India and 
the Future (1919) are other indictments by an extremist of British rule in 
India. Viscount Morley's Recollections (London, 1918) give in detail the 
work of an important Secretary of State for India. Critical treatments of 
the British administration of the peninsula will be found in H. A. Gibbons, 
The New Map of Asia, 1900-1919 (New York, 1919) and in H. M. Hynd- 
man, The Awakening of Asia (London, 1919). 

For this and the succeeding chapters on contemporary conditions the 
various colonial year-books and general year-books should be used. The 
most convenient work for imperial statistics is the current number of the 
Statesman's Year- Book, though the authoritative one for India is the India 
Office List. See also the Indian Year Book, published in Bombay. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 

India is the most important in size and wealth of all the parts 
of the British Empire in the Far East. As a result, it has 
often captured the imagination, to the exclusion of other 
British possessions. Yet no student of the map of southern 
Asia and the Indian Ocean can be ignorant of the many 
scattered islands and coastal regions over which the British 
flag now flies. On maps where it is customary to mark by 
red the parts of the British Empire, the Asiatic coasts and the 
neighboring waters seem reddened by a perplexing and ap- 
parently indiscriminate amount of blotches. As we attempt 
to survey in brief fashion these parts of the British dominion, 
we shall find that the interest in India and the Far East is the 
explanation of the ubiquity of the Union Jack in eastern 
waters. 

The Europeans of the Middle Ages did much trading with 
the East, by overland routes to the Orient as well as by 
coasting vessels that skirted the shores of the Persian Gulf 
and the Red Sea. In this mediaeval trade various places 
along the way grew important. Probably Calicut on the 
west coast of India was the most noteworthy port for accu- 
mulating the goods of the farther East and of India for the 
journey to the West. To this emporium were brought the 
spices of the East Indies and the products of China and 
Japan as well as the wealth that India herself produced. The 
most important point in the voyage to Calicut from the east- 
ern coast of Asia was Malacca at the southern end of the 
Malay Peninsula. 

With the Commercial Revolution at the dawn of Modern 
History the trade with the East assumed a new importance. 1 
Vasco da Gama's journey around Africa to Calicut in 1497- 
98 furnished another route to the Far East. At the same 
time other epoch-making ventures were being made on the 

1 See chapter n. 



THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 321 

great ocean. This impulse to bolder navigation marks the 
approximate time of, if it does not account wholly for, the 
decline of the great trading cities of the Mediterranean. 
Spain, Holland, France, and England took an interest in the 
discovery of new lands and the search for commercial wealth. 
But Portugal, by Da Gama's voyage, had acquired a prior 
claim to the route around Africa. Of this she took great 
advantage and Portuguese outposts were soon established at 
Goa, Calicut, Malacca, in the Spice Islands, at Macao on the 
Chinese coast, in Formosa, and elsewhere. The route to 
these eastern factories was well provided with a chain of 
stations, of which the most notable were the Cape Verde 
Islands, St. Helena, St. Paul de Loanda, Delagoa Bay, and 
Mozambique. 

In spite of this auspicious start, the Portuguese were not 
permitted to enjoy the lucrative trade of the East unhin- 
dered. Holland and Spain organized East India Companies 
and began regular commercial relations with the Far East. 
The Dutch, who were very active in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, made their most important stopping-place on the route 
at Cape Town. They also took St. Helena from the Portu- 
guese, and in the course of the century wrested from the 
hands of Portugal most of the vast East Indies, including the 
island of Ceylon, the tip of the Malay Peninsula, and the 
Spice Islands. 

With the opening of the seventeenth century the British 
and French also became actively interested in the trading 
possibilities of southern Asia. As the British were unable to 
break into the Dutch monopoly of the East Indies, they 
turned to India, where, by gradual conquests of the native 
states and successful wars against the French, an empire was 
created. It grew more and more valuable with the years. 
Although the French remained, they were confined to a few 
insignificant towns. With the decline of the Dutch coloniz- 
ing and commercial activity as well, the British forged ahead 
as the supreme nation on the sea. As India developed and 
the British became more and more the masters of the mari- 
time world, the Indian trade increased in value. While the 



322 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

other parts of the British Empire were being lost or were 
in an undeveloped state, India was sending a continuous 
stream of wealth to her conquerors. 

It was but natural, therefore, that India should powerfully 
affect British foreign policy. Indeed, it is not going too far 
to say that the last one hundred and fifty years of British 
foreign policy on the eastern seas and in eastern Europe have 
been predominantly influenced by this great peninsula of 
Asia. In its behalf the various routes had to be safeguarded. 
Portugal and Holland and France lost valuable possessions, 
because they seemed essential to the security of India. The 
Ottoman Empire was kept intact largely through British in- 
fluence, because it seemed to safeguard a route to India. 
Russia's expansion into Central Asia and Turkestan was 
viewed with suspicion out of solicitude for India. The In- 
dian Empire is the explanation of the numerous British pos- 
sessions on the eastern highways of the sea and the key to the 
comprehension of the British policy regarding both the Near 
and the Far East. 

In the previous chapter we have discussed the policy of 
Great Britain with regard to the land approaches to India. 
Extensions were made all along the territorial borders to 
afford a "scientific frontier" for the protection of British 
India. Burma on the east with its forested hills serves as a 
guard, and Tibet to the northeast and Afghanistan to the 
northwest have been of much interest to British statesmen 
as buffers for India. The deserts and the barren highlands 
of Baluchistan were acquired to safeguard the western ap- 
proach. 

THE ROUTE AROUND AFRICA 

But it is with the "wet ways of the sea" that we are 
chiefly concerned in this chapter. As the British traders 
continued to go around Africa, the route gradually became 
marked by the possessions of England. 

One of the most interesting of Britain's holdings on this 
highway is St. Helena. Discovered by the Portuguese, its 
value was early realized for the eastern traders. In the days 



THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 323 

of small ships and slow sailing before capricious winds, nu- 
merous stopping-places for food and water were necessary. 
St. Helena was ideally located for the purpose. Purchas, the 
continuator of Hakluyt's record of British voyages, has writ- 
ten truly of the value of St. Helena: "It seems God has 
planted it in convenient place for the long and dangerous In- 
dian navigations." This important link in the chain of em- 
pire was especially useful to vessels on the return journey, as 
they were driven northward by the prevailing winds. 

Lancaster, in his voyage to the east in 1591, had stopped at 
St. Helena. For a time in the early seventeenth century it 
was used by the Dutch, but since about 1650 it has been in 
British hands. In 1673 the East India Company received 
the island by charter as "very necessary and commodious for 
. . . merchants trading into the East Indies for refreshing 
their servants and people in their returns homewards." 1 
This port of call on the way to India acquired a fame 
unconnected with its real use to the East India Company, 
when it served as the prison for Napoleon from his defeat 
at Waterloo until his death in 1821. During this period the 
island was lent to Great Britain by the Company for this 
special use and returned to the Company after Napoleon's 
death. In 1834 it became a Crown Colony. With the 
improvement of sea navigation and the opening of other 
routes to the East, this lonely isle of the mid-Atlantic has 
greatly declined in importance. 

South Africa was the next valuable port of call for the Brit- 
ish trader. It was settled by the Dutch as their victualing- 
station, but was lost to the British in the Napoleonic wars; 
the fear that the French would obtain this valuable post on 
the road to India had led to its capture in 1795. 

Mauritius had somewhat the same importance in the In- 
dian Ocean that St. Helena possessed in the Atlantic. It is 
about as far from the Cape of Good Hope as it is from the 
coast of India. The Portuguese were uninterested in Mau- 
ritius, nor did the Dutch use it to a great extent, although 
they gave it the name of Mauritius after the Stadtholder of 

, l Quoted in C. P. Lucas, West Africa, p. 392. 



324 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Holland, Count Maurice of Nassau. The French, however, 
found it of value. Early in the eighteenth century it was 
taken over as a port of call and renamed the lie de France. 
In the wars waged between the French and the British dur- 
ing the eighteenth century the island became of great strate- 
gic value, as it lay on the direct route to the East. The fa- 
mous admiral Labourdonnais gave much of his life to Mauri- 
tius, for it proved an admirable center for disturbing British 
trade and a useful base for attacking India. If the French 
East India Company had been more efficient and Dupleix 
more willing to cooperate with Labourdonnais, there might 
have been a different outcome to the Franco-British conflict 
in the East. Mauritius finally became a British possession 
during the Napoleonic wars; in 1810 it was attacked and cap- 
tured by forces sent from India. 

When the Suez Canal was opened shortly after the middle 
of the nineteenth century, Mauritius suffered the loss of 
much of its transit trade. Its chief source of wealth at pres- 
ent is sugar. This very densely populated island has still a 
very strong French character, although Indians are now 
greatly in the majority. At the close of the World War in 
1918 the islanders were influenced by the tendency to settle 
national control according to "self-determination" with the 
result that there was a movement on the part of the French 
inhabitants for a retrocession of the island to France. 

About one thousand miles north of Mauritius is the group 
of islands known as the Seychelles Archipelago. With it, un- 
der one colonial government, is grouped a number of other 
clusters north of Madagascar. The Seychelles have had 
much the same history as Mauritius. They were occupied 
by the French at the opening of the Seven Years' War, when 
the group was named after the Controller of Finance of that 
time, Vicomte Sechelles, and the largest of the islands was 
called Mahe, from Mahe Labourdonnais, the great Governor 
of Mauritius. In the Napoleonic wars Mahe" was valuable 
as a place of refuge and as a supply-base for French vessels. 
On that account the archipelago was captured by the British, 
with whom it has remained ever since. It is somewhat out 




CQ CQ offiCQ SCO 



326 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of the routes of trade, though on the line of ships going from 
Bombay to Zanzibar. 

As we approach the Indian coast the next island-groups of 
any importance are the Maldives and the Laccadives. The 
Laccadive Islands are administered from India, while the 
Maldive group is connected with Ceylon. 

Much more valuable than any of the possessions already 
considered is the island of Ceylon, hung like a pendent jewel 
from the tip of India. Its area is somewhat less than that of 
Ireland; it has a population of four million. Although ra- 
cially and geographically related to India, it has had a sepa- 
rate history, and is in no sense a part of the Indian Empire. 
With the rise of Portuguese power Ceylon was brought under 
the rule of this European nation. It was not long before the 
Dutch took Ceylon from the Portuguese, and when the Na- 
poleonic wars brought Holland into French possession the 
British from Madras took the island from their rivals. Since 
1796 it has belonged to Great Britain. 

Ceylon was well known in the Middle Ages, for Marco 
Polo had visited it in his travels. The Portuguese and Dutch 
found it particularly valuable in the spice trade, as it pro- 
duced large quantities of cinnamon. It was also famous for 
precious stones. Several hundred gem quarries are still 
worked, and the pearly banks on the west coast have long 
been noteworthy. With the British occupation and conquest 
and the opening-up of commercial possibilities, Ceylon has 
become valuable in many other ways. In recent years coco- 
nut products, rubber, and tea have been the chief sources of 
wealth for the island. Several hundred million pounds of 
tea are exported every year — about half the world's supply. 

Politically Ceylon has lagged somewhat behind the more 
advanced provinces of India, although the development has 
not been dissimilar. The same demand for a reform of the 
way in which they are governed has been made by the Cey- 
lonese as by the Egyptians and the Indians. They held a 
National Congress in 1919 which drafted proposals for rep- 
resentative institutions. Constitutional reform has long 
been overdue, and the native "unrest" in other parts of the 



THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 327 

East has found expression here as well. As a result of the 
agitation a new constitution has been granted which gives 
a majority in the Legislature to the unofficial element. 

MALAYSIA 

The peninsula of India was by no means the only center of 
interest for the eastern traders when England and France, 
Portugal and Holland, were contending for the privilege of 
holding the " gorgeous East in fee." As we have found, In- 
dia was not regarded at first of such value for commercial 
purposes as the East Indies. The Malabar Coast was rather 
the place of assemblage. It is to be expected, therefore, that 
Great Britain should acquire possessions along this route to 
the East as the Empire has been built. 

In the Bay of Bengal are the Andaman and Nicobar Is- 
lands, administered as a part of India. The Andamans are 
used as a penal settlement for life-term convicts from India. 
It was here that Lord Mayo was assassinated in 1872. 1 

On the journey to the eastern coast of Asia the strategic 
point is the end of the Malay Peninsula where but a narrow 
strait separates it from the great island of Sumatra. Here 
the British have taken a strong position as the other trading 
nations had done before them. The port of Malacca had 
been famous for centuries before the Portuguese came to it 
early in the sixteenth century. It was captured by Albu- 
querque, who made it a base for conquest and for the control 
of the trade of the islands to the south and east. With the 
decline of the Portuguese power, the Dutch, who ever dogged 
their heels, took possession of the East Indies and Malacca. 
It was captured by them in 1641, remaining a Dutch port 
until captured by the British in 1795. For thirty years its 
status remained unsettled. Malacca was restored to Holland 
by the Peace of Amiens (1802), recaptured by the British 
five years later, returned to Holland in 1818, and finally 
became British by treaty in 1825. 

Before the British procured this trading-post they had 

1 See page 303. Readers of The Sign of the Four will recall Conan Doyle's 
realistic use of this penal settlement. 



328 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

taken steps to obtain a footing in the straits. It is true that 
the Dutch, in the seventeenth century, had driven the British 
from the East Indies, with the exception of a few posts on the 
island of Sumatra. As the China trade of the English East 
India Company grew more important, it became necessary to 
have a post on the natural sea-route between India and 
China. The island of Penang at the northern end of the 
straits and above Malacca was chosen as a satisfactory port 
of call. In 1786 a representative of the East India Company 
obtained it from the neighboring sultan. The strip of main- 
land which was included in the British territory by an addi- 
tional cession in 1800 was called Province Wellesley from the 
Governor-General then ruling in India. In 1805 so impor- 
tant had Penang become that it was raised to the rank of a 
presidency under the Governor-General of Bengal. 

During the Napoleonic wars the British became a menace 
to the Dutch possessions in the East as well as to Ceylon and 
Cape Colony. Although no permanent holdings were added 
to the Empire from the Dutch islands in the East Indies dur- 
ing this period, British control was consolidated and strength- 
ened in the straits. This was largely owing to the energy 
and foresight of a remarkable man, Sir Stamford Raffles. 
In 1805 Raffles had been sent to Penang as secretary for the 
East India Company. It was he who, in 1809, suggested to 
Lord Minto, then Governor-General of India, the conquest 
of Java. This was successfully undertaken in 1811, and 
Raffles was made Lieutenant-Governor of the new territory 
for the Company. He ruled for five years with conspicuous 
success over this island, which to-day is so valuable a part of 
the Dutch holdings in the East Indies. Nothing shows 
better the British disinclination for Empire in the early nine- 
teenth century than the return of Java to the Dutch at 
the close of the Napoleonic wars. In 1818 this energetic 
servant of the Company was made Lieutenant-Governor of 
Benkulen, the British trading-post still retained on the west 
coast of Sumatra. 

The most important work that Sir Stamford Raffles per- 
formed for the Company was the selection of the island of 



330 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Singapore as the chief British port in the Malay Straits. In 
1819 he induced the Governor-General of India to annex 
this admirably located island. Lord Hastings was heartily 
in favor of Raffles' desire for Singapore, although the East 
India Company felt that it was likely to be an expensive 
addition to her territories and one that might embroil the 
English with the Dutch. In truth, Sir Stamford Raffles 
believed that the possession of Singapore would help British 
trading interests by furnishing an adequate means of coun- 
tering Dutch influence in the Malay Straits. At the time the 
Dutch held Malacca on the north side as well as the islands 
of Sumatra and Java to the south. 

The letters of this clear-sighted Englishman graphically 
describe the importance of the new port at the same time 
that they reveal the dominant commercial motive for a se- 
cure highway to the farther East. He wrote in the year in 
which he acquired Singapore : "You have only to glance at the 
map for the Straits of Singapore, at the south extreme of the 
Straits of Malacca and consider that we have another port 
under which all of the China trade must pass; this will con- 
vince you that our station completely outflanks the Straits 
of Malacca and secures a passage for our China ships at all 
times and under all circumstances. It has further been my 
good fortune to discover one of the most safe and extensive 
harbours in these seas. In short, Singapore is everything we 
could desire. ... It will soon rise into importance; it breaks 
the spell; and they [the Dutch] are no longer the exclusive 
sovereigns of the Eastern Seas." 

Never was a discoverer more certain of the enduring char- 
acter of his work. In another letter of the same year he de- 
clared:" It is not necessary to say how much I am interested 
in the success of the place; it is a child of my own, and I have 
made it what it is. It bids fair to be the next port to Cal- 
cutta. You may take my word for it, this is by far the most 
important station in the East; and as far as naval superiority 
and commercial interests are concerned, of much higher value 
than whole continents of territory." To another correspond- 
ent he asserted a claim that proved to be true: "Our free port 



THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 331 

of Singapore in these seas must eventually destroy the spell 
of Dutch monopoly; and what Malta is in the West that may 
Singapore become in the East." * His foresight was abun- 
dantly justified. Already in 1828 the import and export 
trade of Singapore was twice that of Penang and three times 
as large as that of Malacca. This was in large part the re- 
sult of making Singapore a free port. It became the great 
transit port in the Malay seas and has ever since constantly 
increased in importance. 

During the nineteenth century the whole of the lower part 
of the Malay Peninsula came under British influence. Ben- 
kulen was exchanged for Dutch Malacca in 1825. The 
native Malay states to the north of Singapore gradually 
came under British influence. Toward the close of the 
nineteenth century the governments of five were federated 
under a British High Commissioner. In 1909 five more 
of the native states were transferred by treaty from Siam 
to Great Britain. Their position is not unlike that of the 
native states of India. Indeed, for the first half of the nine- 
teenth century the Malay possessions were regarded as addi- 
tions to India. It was only in 1867 that the Straits Settle- 
ments became a separate Crown Colony. 

BORNEO 

After passing out of the Straits past Singapore the next 
British possessions are found about seven hundred miles due 
east on the island of Borneo. Both the Spanish and Portu- 
guese traded with this island in the sixteenth century. For a 
time the English East India Company had a factory there 
also. The trade languished, however, largely as a result of 
the excessive barbarism of the head-hunting Dyaks and of 
the extensive piracy carried on in these seas. About the 
time of the War of the American Revolution interest in the 
island was renewed. It was in 1774 that the East India 
Company entered into a treaty relation with the Sultan of 
Brunei — Borneo is but a corruption of this word — by 

1 Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Baffles. By 
his Widow. London, 1830, pp. 377, 380, 383. 



332 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

which they obtained a monopoly of the pepper trade in his 
dominions. But the trade was not very brisk, because of the 
extraordinary hindrances we have already mentioned. 

British interest in the country was finally renewed by a 
private adventurer of great interest, James Brooke. Born 
in India in 1803, he served under the East India Company, 
but retired from their service in 1826 after having been 
wounded in the Burmese War. He was of an adventurous 
spirit and talked of leading a crusade against the " Dutch 
vagabonds in the eastern seas." His aims were commercial 
as well, for he wanted to sail to Borneo and visit " Sarawak, 
the place whence small vessels bring the ore of antimony." 
He landed at Sarawak in 1839 and was much impressed by the 
country. In July, 1840, he made a second visit to Borneo 
with the intention of remaining but ten days. At the time 
the Sultan of Brunei was attempting to suppress a revolt in 
Sarawak, but he became discouraged in his efforts to repress 
the rebellion — an uprising for which his misrule was largely 
to blame. He implored the assistance of Brooke and offered 
him the rule of Sarawak as his representative, or raja. 

Strange as it may seem, James Brooke accepted the offer 
of the Sultan, and became known as Raja Brooke of 
Sarawak. In an important letter written from Sarawak in 
1841 he states the objects he had in view: "The extension of 
trade, the propagation of Christianity, the suppression of the 
atrocities practiced in the Dyak tribes and the extirpation of 
piracy." 1 His work was not easy, for he was almost alone. In 
the early years of his rule he had with him as assistants but 
four men who were not natives of Borneo, a doctor, a colored 
interpreter from Singapore, an illiterate servant, and a ship- 
wrecked Irishman. Nevertheless his success was real. The 
lower classes were freed from the burdens of harsh taxation; 
they had the benefits of a court of justice in the Raja's own 
house; piracy and head-hunting were suppressed; in short, 
civilization took the place of savagery. The native chiefs 
assisted the white Raja in the administration of the country. 
From the very first, Sarawak has been ruled with an extraor- 

1 The Private Letters of Sir James Brooke, London, 1853, i, 169- 



THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 333 

dinary regard for the interests of the native population. 
James Brooke looked upon his rule as a trust, and his succes- 
sors have not deviated from his ideals. 

Raja Brooke retired in 1863, worn out by his strenuous 
life in a tropical country. He was succeeded by his nephew, 
Sir Charles Johnson Brooke, who carried on his uncle's be- 
neficent methods until his own death in 1917. In the latter 
year, Charles Vyner Brooke, the present Raja, succeeded his 
father as the ruler of this Malay state. Sarawak, larger than 
England, thus presents one of the most curious conditions to 
be found in the world. It is a Malay state ruled by an he- 
reditary line of white rajas, who are at the same time citizens 
of Great Britain. Sarawak bears the same relation to the 
British Empire as do other protected native states, except 
that there is no need whatever for interference in its govern- 
ment. It is a part of the Empire so far as its relation with 
foreign powers is concerned. 

North of Sarawak is Brunei, from whose Sultan it had been 
obtained by Brooke. During the nineteenth century Brunei 
has dwindled in size, and is now under the protection of a 
British Resident. North Borneo, which is adjacent to 
Brunei and occupies the northern end of the island, is under 
the government of a chartered company. The British 
North Borneo Company does not trade, as might be ex- 
pected; its sole task is to govern. Off the coast of North 
Borneo is the island of Labuan. It is not a protectorate like 
the three mainland districts already mentioned, but an out- 
and-out British possession. Before it was ceded to Britain 
by the Sultan of Brunei in 1846, it had been the site of a fac- 
tory of the English East India Company. Great things com- 
mercially were expected of this advantageously situated is- 
land; it was to be a second Singapore. But the unadvanced 
character of the peoples of Borneo have prevented the ex- 
pected development. 

CHINA 

Continuing our journey along the Asiatic coast we find a 
much more valuable post for British trade in the island of 



334 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Hong Kong on the south coast of China at the mouth of the 
Canton River. In 1557 the Portuguese established them- 
selves at Macao across the river from Hong Kong. In 1634 
the English endeavored to open relations with the Chinese at 
Canton. At first they were unsuccessful, but later were per- 
mitted to trade on a very restricted basis with certain Can- 
ton merchants at the close of that century. The amount of 
trade was limited and it was to be carried on only through the 
East India Company. This situation remained until 1834, 
when the revision of the Company's charter deprived them 
of the monopoly of the Chinese trade. 

Under the new arrangement a Superintendent of British 
trade was appointed for Canton. Yet the relations between 
the Chinese and the British were not smooth under the new 
system. The Chinese resented in particular the large im- 
portation of opium from India. This, as we have noticed, 
was a lucrative government monopoly and an important 
source for Indian revenue. The Chinese tried to prohibit 
the importation of the drug save for a small licensed trade. 
In consequence, smuggling became very common. The 
Chinese opposed the growing opium evil as best they could, 
even to the point of dumping twenty thousand chests of 
opium into the sea. As a result of this and other causes 
for friction, the so-called Opium War began in 1840. The 
British found the Chinese no match for European military 
methods, and easily conquered several coast cities with great 
slaughter. By the Treaty of Nanking (1841) five Chinese 
ports were opened to British trade, and Hong Kong was 
ceded to the victors. Although the Chinese refused to legal- 
ize the opium trade, the drug has been introduced in consid- 
erable quantities ever since. The cession of Hong Kong to 
the British has given the Empire a highly valued base in east- 
ern waters. As a free port it has enjoyed an enormous busi- 
ness. 1 

The only other British foothold on the eastern Asiatic 

1 In 1861 China ceded to Great Britain the peninsula of Kowloon, which is 
separated from Hong Kong by a narrow strait. Some additional neighboring 
territory was leased from China for ninety-nine years in 1898. , - — 



THE HIGHWAY TO THE EAST 335 

coast has been Weihaiwei, located at the end of the Shantung 
Peninsula within convenient distance of Kiao-chau and Port 
Arthur. It was obtained by lease from China in 1898. Ger- 
many in March of that year became the possessor of Kiao- 
chau by means of a ninety-nine-year lease. Later in the same 
month Russia obtained Port Arthur in a similar manner. In 
April France leased Kwangchau-wan, and in June and July 
Great Britain extended its territory about Hong Kong as 
well as procured a hold on the Shantung Peninsula by the 
lease of Weihaiwei. The necessity for preserving the balance 
of power in the Far East was the excuse for the British leases. 
Although strategically located Weihaiwei has never been 
fortified. 

The relation of the Powers to China was profoundly af- 
fected by the Washington Conference of 1921-22. Early in 
the sessions China pressed for a removal of existing limita- 
tions upon its freedom of action. When the question of 
leased territories came before the Conference, the nations 
holding leases agreed to a partial withdrawal. France was 
willing to return Kwangchau-wan, and Japan, after long ne- 
gotiations, promised to release its hold of Kiao-chau, which 
had been taken by the Japanese during the World War. 
Thereupon, Mr. Balfour, the chairman of the British delega- 
tion, stated formally what he had already made public that 
Great Britain would hand back Weihaiwei to China. Great 
Britain was not prepared, however, to act in the same mam- 
ner regarding the territorial additions made in 1898 around 
Hong Kong, on the ground that the lease of the Kowloon ex- 
tension had been effected in order that the free port of Hong 
Kong, the financial center of the East, might be more secure. 1 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

, In the "Historical Geography of the British Colonies" R. E. Stubbs has 
written a volume on the Mediterranean and Eastern Colonies (Oxford, 1906) 
and Sir Charles Lucas has contributed the volume on West Africa, the 
third edition of which has been revised by A. B. Keith (Oxford, 1913). In 

1 For the government of the Crown Colonies, the group to which most of the 
British possessions mentioned in this chapter belong see pp. 43S ff. 



336 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

A. Wyatt Tilby's "English People Overseas" there is Britain in the Tropics, 
1527-1910 (London, 1912). H. E. Egerton has written a Life of Sir Stam- 
ford Raffles (London. 1900) and Sir Spencer St. John an account of the 
work of Rajah Brooke (London, 1899), these biographies appearing in the 
"Builders of Greater Britain" series. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 

We have traced the growth of British power along the old 
trade routes around Africa to India, and from India east- 
ward through the Malay Straits to the farther East. Com- 
merce in the interests of a trading company is the key to the 
extension of the British power along these maritime high- 
ways. On our return to the homeland from India we have 
still a third route to traverse — now the most important of 
all three for the security of British India and British com- 
merce. It is the route westward across the Indian Ocean, 
past the southern side of the Arabian Peninsula, through the 
Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, and thence to the Brit- 
ish Isles by way of Gibraltar. 

Trading vessels had followed this course into the Red Sea 
in the Middle Ages. The prevailing north winds, however, 
and the lack of a continuous water route had led to the trans- 
ference of goods by caravan to the Nile. They were then 
taken down the river to Cairo and Alexandria, and at Alexan- 
dria the riches of the East were loaded on Mediterranean ves- 
sels for the European trade. The value of this highway was 
greatly diminished when the all-sea journey around Africa 
was discovered, for a long carriage on water was cheaper and 
easier than a short journey requiring several reloadings of 
goods. It was not until the nineteenth century that the Red 
Sea route sprang to a place of first importance. The intro- 
duction of steam navigation had a marked influence, for con- 
trary winds became of less importance. More influential 
was the connecting of the Red Sea with the Mediterranean 
by the Suez Canal. As a result, this route became the most 
traveled one between the British Isles and the valuable In- 
dian and Australasian possessions. 

The Suez Canal is on the line of a waterway which was 
probably in use centuries ago. When Napoleon was in 
Egypt, he planned for a connection between the Red Sea and 



S38 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the Mediterranean, but the British interference with his 
occupation of Egypt prevented the fulfillment of this pur- 
pose. In 1837 a committee of Parliament reported on the 
best means of establishing communication with India by 
way of the Mediterranean. The committee, however, did 
not favor the Red Sea passage, recommending instead the 
route by way of the Euphrates River. Interest in a canal 
grew by the middle of the nineteenth century to the point 
of an investigation of the route by an international commis- 
sion of engineers. The British were opposed to the plan, 
but a Frenchman, De Lesseps, formed a company, which 
was largely capitalized in France. The Mohammedan 
ruler of Egypt agreed to contribute the necessary laborers 
by furnishing Egyptian fellaheen. In addition the Egyp- 
tian ruler, Said Pasha, made a preliminary loan and sub- 
scribed for a large share of the stock. The completed 
canal was formally opened in November, 1869. 

Although the British had opposed the project, its value 
to them became evident almost immediately. Within five 
years over a thousand British vessels were passing through 
the canal annually. So important did the new waterway 
seem to the imperialistic Disraeli that he took measures in 
1875 to bring it under British control. The Egyptian ruler, 
Ismail — Said's successor — becoming bankrupt, proceeded 
to make endeavors to liquidate his canal stock in Paris. Dis- 
raeli, on his own responsibility, purchased Ismail's shares for 
about four million pounds. This act was ratified by Parlia- 
ment, and Great Britain became the chief owner of the new 
canal. It cut down the voyage from western Europe to In- 
dia by thousands of miles and saved several weeks of time. 
In the year before the World War five thousand vessels used 
the canal, three fifths of which flew the British flag. 

Great Britain has a number of stations on the road from 
India to the Suez Canal. At the point where the Red Sea is 
joined to the Gulf of Aden lies the little island of Perim; it is a 
British coaling-station. On the south shore of the Gulf of 
Aden is British Somaliland; on the north is the Peninsula of 
Aden. Farther east on the road to India is the British island 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 339 

of Sokotra. The Kuria Muria Islands, off the coast of 
Arabia, were obtained by Great Britain in 1854 as a land- 
ing-place for the Red Sea cable. All these stations are links 
in the chain binding Britain to India. This is clearly in- 
dicated by the fact that, for governmental purposes, Aden 
with its dependencies, Perim, Sokotra, and the Kuria Muria 
Islands, have been under the Bombay Presidency. After 
the World War, however, they were transferred from the 
India Office to the Colonial Office. 

Aden is very valuable. In mediaeval days it was note- 
worthy in trade. The great Portuguese commander, Albu- 
querque, in the opening of the sixteenth century, regarded 
its possession as essential for the control of the wealth of the 
East Indies. Naturally its importance declined with the 
discovery of the sea-route around Africa, since the Portuguese 
held it more to prevent than develop its trade. It was in 
1839 that the British obtained Aden. With the opening of 
the Suez Canal it leaped into prominence immediately. As 
Aden is about halfway between Suez and Bombay, it is a stra- 
tegic station on one of the chief highroads of the world. 
Though mostly a bare rock, it has a good harbor that has 
been strongly fortified by Great Britain. 

The Arabian Peninsula, which is shaped like an enormous 
axe with its cutting edge to the south, is bounded on the 
eastern side by the Persian Gulf. This great body of water, 
not far from India, is important for its commerce; at the head 
of the Gulf is Mesopotamia, comprising the rich river val- 
leys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Because of near-by India, 
Great Britain has always had " peculiar interests" in the is- 
lands and shores of the Persian Gulf. In 1622 the East India 
Company expelled the Portuguese from Ormuz. As early 
as 1763 there was a British Resident in the Gulf. The agree- 
ments, commercial and political, with the various rulers of 
territory along its shores have been numerous in the past cen- 
tury and a half. Persia, on the eastern side of the Gulf, has 
been a sphere of British influence for some time, for the In- 
dian Government has felt it necessary to keep at least south- 
ern Persia under British control. The latest illustration is 



340 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the agreement between Great Britain and Persia made in 
1919. 

On the Arabian side of the Gulf there are various tribal 
groups under their emirs and sheiks. The most important is 
the state of Oman, which has a thousand miles of coast-line 
at the southeastern end of the Peninsula. This independent 
Arabian sultanate is actually subordinate to the Government 
of India. A state of similar character is the new kingdom of 
the Hejaz on the western side of the Peninsula. The only 
important islands in the Gulf are the Bahrein Islands, famous 
for their pearl fisheries. The relation of the Indian Govern- 
ment to these islands is even closer than to Oman; they are 
regarded as a part of the British Empire. British commer- 
cial interests in the Gulf have been so predominant for the 
last century that it was no surprise that the mandate of Mes- 
opotamia went to the Power which enjoys commercial and 
political ascendancy in the Gulf. 

THE MEDITERRANEAN . 

The Mediterranean part of the journey from India to the 
mother country is as carefully guarded as the road from Bom- 
bay to the canal. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean 
the British hold Cyprus; as a halfway station there is Malta; 
the western entrance is controlled by Gibraltar. 

In considering British interests in the Mediterranean one 
must not forget that Great Britain has possessed important 
holdings in this sea which it no longer controls. Charles II, 
by his marriage with the Portuguese princess, Catherine of 
Braganza, in 1662, received a dowry of uncommon impor- 
tance from the point of oversea expansion; it included Bom- 
bay in the East Indies and Tangier on the northwest coast of 
Africa. Bombay was turned over to the East India Company 
to become the nucleus of territorial possessions in India. 1 
Tangier, thirty-five miles southwest of Gibraltar, was forti- 
fied and held for only twenty years. A fortress and harbor, 
that might have served British interests in the Mediterra- 
nean almost as well as Gibraltar, was abandoned in 1683 be- 

1 See p. 65. 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 



341 



cause Charles II could not afford to defend it against Moorish 

attacks, and was unwilling to submit his needs to Parliament. 

The island of Minorca, to the east of Spain, came into 

British possession early in the eighteenth century at the 




same time that Gibraltar was acquired. Its excellent harbor 
of Port Mahon was in some ways better located than Gibral- 
tar, especially for watching French activities. The island was 
lost, temporarily, in 1756. Admiral Byng, whose squadron 
did not prevent its capture, was shot on the quarter-deck of 
the Monarque, as a result of a court-martial that found him 
guilty of misconduct. 1 

The Ionian Islands, west of Greece in the Adriatic, were 
placed under British protection by the Congress of Vienna 
at the close of the Napoleonic wars. They did not go the or- 
dinary road of protectorates, however, and later become a 
Crown Colony, but were voluntarily relinquished to Greece in 

1 See p. 87. Minorca was finally ceded to Spain in 1802. 



342 ; THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

1864. Fifteen years after the downfall of Napoleon, Greece 
became independent, and the inhabitants of the Ionian Islands 
desired to unite with their kindred on the Continent. In 1858 
Gladstone went out as a commissioner to investigate the na- 
tive request; he was at first opposed to the cession of the 
islands to Greece, but five years after his brief mission the 
Ionian protectorate was surrendered "in spite of that na- 
tional aversion to anything like giving up." x This recogni- 
tion of the principle of nationality, uncommon in the early 
nineteenth century, came before the rise of the new imperial 
enthusiasm recorded in chapter xvn. Had the islands been 
kept for another generation, it is doubtful whether they 
would have been surrendered. 

In spite of the loss of points of vantage so important for 
naval operations as Tangier, Minorca, and the Ionian Islands, 
Great Britain is still able to guard effectually the road to the 
Suez Canal by means of such strategic holdings as Cyprus, 
Malta, and Gibraltar. 

The Rock of Gibraltar is one of its best-known possessions. 
This impregnable fortress fell into British hands early in the 
eighteenth century. It was at the opening of the War of 
the Spanish Succession that the English admiral, Sir George 
Rooke, was instructed to take Cadiz or Gibraltar in order 
that Great Britain might have a convenient naval base 
whence to attack the French at Toulon. Gibraltar was cap- 
tured in 1704 after a bombardment of a few hours. Several 
times in the early part of the eighteenth century the British 
Government was not unwilling to abandon Gibraltar. Grad- 
ually, however, its strategic value was realized. This Rock 
became a synonym for impregnability when the Spanish and 
French failed to capture it in the siege of 1779-83, in spite 
of extraordinary efforts to take this guardian of the Medi- 
terranean. Its possession has given to the British a feeling 
of security for the most important of the Empire's highways. 
It is strongly fortified. The good harbor has made Gibraltar 
an important port of call for merchant shipping as well; be- 

1 For a full account of this interesting episode see Morley's Life of Gladstone, 
Bk. iv, ch. x. 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 343 

tween four and five thousand vessels stop there every year. 
Although it has an area of less than two square miles, Gi- 
braltar is a Crown Colony of the autocratically governed type. 

Almost exactly halfway between Gibraltar and the Suez 
Canal is the island of Malta. This island has great historic 
interest and serves also as a highly valuable link on the high- 
way to the East. The successive empires of the ancient and 
the Mediterranean world had left their impress on Malta be- 
fore it became British. One of its supposed visitors during 
the days of Roman sway was the Apostle Paul. The ship- 
wreck which is recorded in the Book of Acts took place, ac- 
cording to tradition, in St. Paul's Bay on the northwest coast. 
From the opening of the sixteenth century it was the seat of 
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Napoleon, on his way 
to Egypt, captured the island in 1798. The British took it 
two years later and have retained it ever since. Valetta, 
the chief town, has "one of the finest natural harbors in the 
world." It ranks with Aden and Gibraltar as a port of call 
and as a refitment station and base for the British navy. 1 

In the eastern Mediterranean the British hold the large 
island of Cyprus. Like Malta it has been under many mas- 
ters and has received diverse influences. The student of Eng- 
lish history will recall its conquest by Richard I during the 
Third Crusade, and the latter's marriage there to Queen 
Berengaria. For a time it belonged to the Knights Templars, 
later was an outpost of the Venetians, and finally in 1570 
passed under Turkish control. In 1878 it became subject to 
British rule, though remaining nominally a part of the Turk- 
ish Empire. Great Britain took care that this island should 
not go to any other power, for it is but two hundred and 
thirty miles from the Suez Canal. It was considered of 
value, also, as a coaling-station and as a point from which 
Great Britain could keep a watchful eye on the neighboring 
Turkish mainland. In 1914 Cyprus was formally annexed, 
when Turkey became an enemy of, and a menace to, the 
British Empire. 

The attitude of Great Britain toward the Ottoman Empire 

1 For Malta's novel political status in the Empire see pp. 439 ff. 



344 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

during the nineteenth century has been much influenced by 
the possession of India and by the Mediterranean route to 
the East. During the early years of the century the British 
were concerned in the freeing of European Turkey from the 
rule of the Ottomans; they assisted in obtaining the inde- 
pendence of Greece in 1830. As Russia became more aggres- 
sive in its approach to Constantinople, Great Britain grew 
more anxious to prevent its reaching the Mediterranean. 
This was to be done best by preserving the integrity of the 
Turkish dominions. For this reason the Crimean War was 
waged in the mid-century against an advancing Russia. The 
menace became ominous again in 1877 when Russia defeated 
Turkey disastrously, and rearranged the Balkan boundaries 
so as to deprive the Ottoman Empire of most of Macedonia. 
Again Britain feared Russian influence in Bulgaria and the 
Mediterranean. It forced the reconsideration of the Bal- 
kan question at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. There it was 
decided that the " unspeakable Turk" should keep Mace- 
donia. Austria at this time " occupied " Bosnia and Herze- 
govina, and Great Britain assumed the same relation to 
Cyprus. If the integrity of the Ottoman Empire was not 
to be preserved, Great Britain was determined to have its 
share of the " sick man's " property, or, in any case, to keep 
control of the eastern Mediterranean. 

THE BRITISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT 

This attitude toward the problem of the Near East is illus- 
trated again by the history of Egypt, the part of the Turkish 
dominions most vitally related to the Suez Canal. 

When Napoleon went to Egypt in 1798, he was opposed by 
the Mamelukes, a body of mercenary soldiers that had, to its 
great misfortune, ruled Egypt for a long time. Out of the 
troubles of the Napoleonic wars rose an adventurer of re- 
markable energy who was able to wrest the control of Egypt 
from the Mamelukes. Mehemet Ali, commander of an Alba- 
nian corps, was made Viceroy of the country in 1805 by the 
Sultan of Turkey. He found the Mamelukes a great obstacle 
to his power; it was over a decade before he succeeded in ex- 



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346 . THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

terminating them. After securing control of the land of the 
Nile, Mehemet Ali set about reorganizing the army, building 
a navy, and developing the resources of the country. His 
ambitions were boundless. The Upper Nile valley known as 
the Sudan, was brought under partial control. The Sultan 
had to give him Crete in 1830; a few years later the ruler of 
Turkey was forced to hand over Syria to this ambitious 
Viceroy, although these territories were later returned to the 
Sultan on the intervention of the Powers. Mehemet Ali, 
while in some ways a veritable tyrant, proved an extremely 
vigorous administrator of Egypt for nearly fifty years. He 
died in 1849. 

The next noteworthy ruler of Egypt was Ismail, the grand- 
son of Mehemet Ali, whose rule lasted from 1863 to 1879. Is- 
mail encouraged the building of the Suez Canal, which was 
completed during his reign, furnishing assistance for the ac- 
complishment of the great task by his money and the forced 
labor of the fellaheen. Just two years before the canal was 
opened he obtained from the Sultan the title of Khedive, in- 
cluding the hereditary right for his family of the rule of Egypt. 
The Khedive was very active in developing and extending 
his power. Agriculture was promoted, roads built, the 
Sudan brought under further control. But to this interest 
in the development of his country he added a reckless ex- 
travagance that more than outweighed the good he accom- 
plished. He spent large sums in procuring his freedom 
from Turkish rule. Expensive palaces were built, and his 
coffers were drained by the extravagant life of the court. 
In 1875 Ismail was a bankrupt. It was at this juncture 
that he sold his canal shares to Disraeli. 

The next year the Khedive repudiated his debts. His 
creditors immediately took alarm. Thereupon the European 
states organized an international Caisse de la Dette, or Bank 
of the Debt, to secure enough of the Egyptian revenues to 
pay the interest on the Khedive's foreign obligations. In ad- 
dition, France and Great Britain, as the two nations chiefly 
concerned, appointed controllers to supervise the finances 
of the bankrupt state. When Ismail balked again in 1879 — 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 347 

he refused to pay the interest on the debt — he was deposed 
by the Sultan of Turkey at the request of the Powers. 

Under his son and successor Tewfik the financial hold of 
the European nations became stronger. France and Great 
Britain established a Dual Control in 1880. But the growth 
of foreign interference aroused dissatisfaction among the 
Egyptians. A Nationalist revolt followed under the lead of 
a certain Arabi Pasha. There was an insistent demand, on 
the part of the Mohammedans, for a National Parliament, 
and an army sufficiently strong to insure " Egypt for the 
Egyptians." In 1882 Arabi Pasha became Minister of War 
and the practical ruler of the country. Thereupon he de- 
clared the financial control of the foreigners at an end. The 
resentment of Great Britain and France was natural. In 
addition to the financial obligations that were endangered 
Great Britain feared for the safety of the canal. 

The governments of these two nations felt that it was nec- 
essary to suppress the movement under Arabi and to rein- 
state Tewfik, who had taken refuge with the British. But 
just at this time an adverse vote of the French Chamber of 
Deputies dissolved the Dual Control; Britain was left alone 
to deal with a growing nationalist movement. In 1882 riots 
occurred in the city of Alexandria. Arabi's forces began to 
fortify the city just at the time that the French fleet sailed 
away and left the British alone. As the latter were deter- 
mined not to lose hold of the situation, they promptly bom- 
barded the newly erected fortifications. It was not of its 
own will that Great Britain was unassisted in restoring order 
and demanding recognition of financial obligations in Egypt. 
After France refused to give active assistance — even to the 
extent of patrolling the canal — Italy was invited to join. 
But Great Britain had no aid from either Italy or France in 
Egypt. After securing Alexandria an army of British and 
Indians was dispatched from the canal against Cairo. In 
September, 1882, Arabi's forces were defeated at Tel-el-Ke- 
bir, and Cairo fell shortly afterward. Arabi was captured 
and sent as an exile to Ceylon, and Tewfik was reinstated on 
his throne. 



348 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The throne had become an " empty chair," for, with this 
military action by the British, there began a British occupa- 
tion. As France had taken no part in suppressing Arabi 
Pasha's revolt, Great Britain naturally felt that the Dual 
Control had ceased. Britain's predominant interest in the 
Suez Canal and the financial condition of Egypt made it un- 
wise to evacuate the country after the revolt had been over- 
come, for that would have meant anarchy internally as well 
as danger to outside interests. The British decided, there- 
fore, to remain and to supervise Egyptian affairs until peace 
and prosperity were established and the Egyptians proved 
themselves capable of self-government. At that time the 
British did not expect that the occupation would be perma- 
nent. 

In 1884 Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) was appointed 
British Agent and Consul-General. This great administra- 
tor was the wise guide of Egyptian affairs until his retirement 
in 1907. He well deserves the title of "Maker of Modern 
Egypt." Lord Cromer was set to work under a regime that 
was anomalous, to say the least. It would have been much 
simpler for him if Great Britain had immediately declared a 
protectorate over Egypt. But that would have reopened to 
a fresh consideration the question of the Near East. Russia 
and Austria-Hungary might have demanded " compensa- 
tion " to offset Britain's gain. It required extraordinary abil- 
ity in Lord Cromer to labor with a people of different lan- 
guage and race and religion who were being " advised," but 
were not willing to accept innovations. Lord Cromer proved 
"resolute, tactful, far-seeing, and inexhaustibly patient." It 
was fortunate that the Khedive, Tewfik Pasha, was not of 
the high-spirited type of his predecessors, Mehemet Ali and 
Ismail. He owed his throne to British intervention, and 
he cooperated with the British in the regeneration of the 
country. 

Lack of space does not permit of a detailed treatment of 
the work done by the foreign administrators, who practically 
remade Egypt. For one thing, the corvee or forced labor of 
the fellaheen was abolished. The bulk of the peasantry had 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 349 

been in practical slavery for centuries. The fellaheen, 
though freed from the ordinary corvee, were still liable to be 
called out in cases of emergency during the flood season of the 
Nile. Another measure of reform was a careful revaluation 
of the land, so that small cultivators would be taxed fairly 
and owners of large tracts of good land would not evade their 
obligations. The distribution of Nile water in the irrigation 
system has been made more equitable by the even-handed 
justice of the British officials. The reduction of the direct 
tax on the land and of the salt tax has gone far to better the 
lot of the lower classes. Above all, there was honesty and 
efficiency in the administration — a signal triumph in that 
part of the world. 

The financial condition of Egypt has decidedly improved 
since 1882. When the British occupation began there was a 
debt of one hundred million pounds. It was necessary to 
make the service of this debt a first claim on the revenue. 
Besides, the Egyptian Government was required to hold in 
reserve other funds, making it difficult to finance the needed 
internal improvements. When the World War began the 
debt remained about as large as it was forty years before. It 
has been gradually decreasing, however, and the burdensome 
debt-charge of over three million pounds annually is being 
slowly diminished. Since 1905 the reserve funds have been 
at the disposal of the Egyptian Government. 

The financial conditions were bound to improve as a re- 
sult of the increased revenue obtainable from a developing 
country. The British have worked wonders in the conserva- 
tion and distribution of the Nile water, so essential to the 
life of Egypt. The reservoir system has been enlarged, and 
the barrage just south of the Delta put into working order. 
The greatest accomplishment of the British was the comple- 
tion, in 1903, of the Assouan Dam. This dam, near the 
southern border of Egypt, is over a mile long and backs up 
the waters of the Nile for nearly two hundred miles. Thou- 
sands of acres have been brought under cultivation as a 
result of these various projects. 



350 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



THE SUDAN 

During the time the British occupied Egypt they also 
brought the country to the south, known as the Sudan, un- 
der their control. Mehemet Ali had subjugated some of the 
tribes of the Sudan, but the greater part of it remained un- 
known and unconquered. It was in 1864 that the English 
traveler, Sir Samuel Baker, pushed up the Nile to Lake 
Victoria Nyanza. A few years later Ismail appointed this 
famous explorer and hunter to restore his waning au- 
thority in the Sudan. Baker suppressed the slave-trade and 
opened the country to commerce. On his departure, how- 
ever, in 1873 the conditions in the Sudan soon relapsed to the 
state in which he had found them. In 1874 Ismail sent 
General Charles (" Chinese") Gordon to the Upper Nile 
country to complete the work of Baker. His wonderful 
energy in suppressing rebellion as well as in preventing the 
trade in slaves only served to arouse a feeling of bitter revolt 
among the tribesmen against the foreigners who were inter- 
fering with their ways of life. Gordon's governorship in the 
Sudan ended in 1879 when Ismail was deposed as Khedive. 

Two years later the Sudanese dissatisfaction came to a 
head just at the time that Arabi Pasha was leading a similar 
movement in Egypt. The uprising in the Sudan was under a 
leader known as the Mahdi. He was particularly successful 
in arousing the dervishes against the foreigner, because of 
the appeal he made to religious fanaticism. It was widely 
believed that the Mahdi — or " Guide" — was a forerunner 
of the Messiah. The religious character of his frenzied 
leadership added great enthusiasm to the desire of the tribes- 
men to be free from the tax collector and the foreigner. The 
opportunity to carry on the slave-trade had something to do, 
also, with the growth of the Mahdi's power. A holy war be- 
gan with the capture of Kordofan. The Egyptian Govern- 
ment determined to settle the Sudan question once for all by 
the decisive defeat of the new movement. For this purpose 
Colonel Hicks, a retired British officer, was sent south at the 
head of an army of ten thousand Egyptian troops. In 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 351 

September, 1883, Hicks Pasha, as he is known, invaded Kor- 
dofan. Forty thousand of the Mahdi's forces attacked the 
little army and exterminated it. 

This great disaster was not immediately retrieved, for the 
Egyptian Government and army were in a disorganized 
state. In addition, the Nationalist movement led by the 
Mahdi was growing stronger and stronger. It was decided, 
in view of the situation in both the Sudan and Egypt, to 
abandon the country of the Upper Nile. The withdrawal of 
the garrisons, the most important of which was at Khartum 
where the Blue Nile joins the« White Nile, was the chief 
difficulty. General Gordon, despite Lord Cromer's disap- 
proval of the selection, was sent to Khartum for the purpose 
of bringing about the evacuation. The choice was not a 
good one. As an uncompromising Christian of strongly reli- 
gious temperament, he aroused the fanaticism of the der- 
vishes, who so profoundly believed in the Mahdi; as Gov- 
ernor-General of the Sudan from 1874 to 1879, he had been 
responsible for the cordial ill will of the natives by his vig- 
orous attacks on the slave-trade and by other measures. 1 

Gordon arrived at Khartum in the spring of 1884. By 
that time the evacuation of the Sudan became of less interest 
to him — and to the British public as well — than the reor- 
ganization of the Sudanese Government and the " smashing 
up of the Mahdi." Gordon delayed the evacuation until it 
was too late and the retreat was cut off by the Mahdi's 
forces. A remarkable siege of over ten months followed. 
After long delay, for which Gladstone was in part responsi- 
ble, a relief expedition was organized. But it did not reach 
Khartum until January 28, 1885. Two days before, the 
place was stormed and the townspeople slaughtered. The 
head of Gordon was exhibited by order of the Mahdi in a 
prominent place on the public highway where all who passed 
could throw stones at it. The blame for this terrible disaster 
rests to a considerable degree on Gordon himself who, allured 
by the idea of ruling the country he had formerly adminis- 

1 There is an interesting essay on "The End of General Gordon" in 
Strachey's Eminent Victorians (New York, 1918). 



352 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

tered, had exceeded his instructions. Queen Victoria wrote 
General Gordon's sister a letter of warm sympathy for "the 
stain left upon England for your dear Brother's cruel, though 
heroic fate." 

After the great catastrophe at Khartum the Sudan was 
left to itself for a while. During the next decade the Egyp- 
tian army was reorganized with British officers in charge. It 
was not until 1896 that Lord Kitchener, the Sirdar or head of 
the Egyptian army, was ordered to reconquer the Sudan. 
The motives that led to the reconquest were diverse. Under 
the Khalifa, who had succeeded the Mahdi, the peace had 
been kept, but in the middle nineties the dervishes were grow- 
ing active again, and Osman Digna, the ablest of the der- 
vish leaders, was endangering the Egyptian frontier. The 
British, moreover, felt it necessary to hold the Upper Nile in 
order to secure the supply of water for Lower Egypt. An- 
other reason for the reoccupation was the French inten- 
tion to acquire the country by an invasion from the Congo 
region. Kitchener carried on his campaign of reconquest 
with great care. He maintained strong connections with his 
base of supplies, even building a railway two hundred miles 
long across the desert. In 1898 at Omdurman, across the 
Nile from Khartum, a great victory was won over the forces 
of the Khalifa. On his return to Great Britain the victorious 
general received the title of Baron Kitchener of Khartum. 

After the Battle of Omdurman, Kitchener learned that a 
French force had reached Fashoda (Kodok), four hundred 
and fifty miles farther up the river. Major Marchand had 
penetrated to that point, marching east from the French 
Congo, in order to lay claim to the district for his Govern- 
ment. Thereupon Kitchener proceeded to Fashoda, where 
he found Marchand with his few followers in imminent 
danger of attack from the dervishes. Marchand refused to 
lower the French flag at Kitchener's demand. When the 
news reached home, feeling ran high on both sides of the 
Channel, and there was danger of an Anglo-French war had 
France persisted in supporting Marchand. It proved to be 
but an " incident," however, as France relinquished rights to 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 353 

that part of the Sudan. In return, Great Britain recognized 
France's claim to the territory east and southeast of Lake 
Tchad in central Africa. The Anglo-French Agreement of 
1904 settled other problems of the two Governments, giving 
mutual support for projected colonial plans in Africa; French 
interests in Morocco were recognized by Great Britain, and 
the British were allowed by this Agreement to choose their 
own time for evacuating Egypt. Thus, by a strange turn in 
affairs, the "Fashoda Incident," instead of bringing war be- 
tween France and England, laid the basis of that entente 
cordiale, which lasted through the World War against Ger- 
many. 

The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is administered by Egypt and 
Great Britain in concert, though it is really nothing more 
than the rule of the stronger of these two partners. The 
Governor-General is appointed by Egypt with the assent of 
Great Britain. The latter also has decided on the general 
policy of the administration. The governors of the fifteen 
provinces are British officers in the Egyptian army. The 
provincial subdivisions are in the hands of British inspectors, 
under whom Egyptian officers superintend the various dis- 
tricts. The population of this immense section of central 
Africa is over three million. Commercially it is useful as the 
world's most important source for gum arabic and ivory. 

MODBKN EGYPT 

The thirteen million inhabitants of Egypt live along the 
Nile and in the Delta. The inhabited districts are densely 
peopled, averaging over one thousand to the square mile; the 
population has doubled since the British occupation took 
place. The Nile valley has been noted for centuries as one 
of the greatest producing areas in the world. In addition to 
the crops of wheat and rice there is a large amount of cotton 
produced; Great Britain annually obtains from Egypt more 
than £20,000,000 worth of raw cotton for the mills of Lan- 
cashire. 

The government of Egypt at the opening of the World War 
was nominally under the Khedive and a ministry of natives. 



354 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

A Legislative Assembly came into being in 1913, consisting of 
the ministers, sixty-six elected members, and seventeen mem- 
bers appointed by the Government. The assembly was given 
the power to initiate legislation and was consulted on the 
matter of loans, but the Government was not responsible to 
this body. If the two disagreed, the Government enacted 
laws as it saw fit. An exception to this autocratic system 
was the veto power over new direct personal or land taxes. 
Provincial and municipal councils were established that as- 
sisted in the administration of the country. The Egyptian 
army, which was reorganized after the British occupation, 
became an efficient force under British officers. There was 
also a British Army of Occupation, which continuously 
served as a thorn in the side of the subordinated country. 
Justice has been administered by a system of laws and courts 
in line with the customs of the people, although foreigners in 
Egypt have not been under the jurisdiction of the lower 
courts. The Capitulations (or treaties) made by the Turkish 
Empire with the fourteen principal Christian states have 
applied to Egypt as well. A person living in Egypt, but a 
citizen of one of these countries, has had the privilege of trial 
for an offense before the consul of his own country; in addi- 
tion, he has been largely exempt from taxation. 

Since the opening of the new century Egypt has gone 
through a period of " unrest," not unlike that we have found 
in India. Nationalism had developed both in Egypt and the 
Sudan in the days of Arabi's revolt. It was made more bitter, 
as time went on, by the apparent intention of the British to 
stay permanently in the land of the Nile. The promises of 
the first years of the occupation that the British administra- 
tion was but temporary gave place to more indefinite state- 
ments. The agreements entered into with France in 1898 
and 1904 granted Britain permission to choose its own time for 
leaving the country. At the same time the British Govern- 
ment declared that it had no intention of altering the politi- 
cal status of Egypt. The fear of Egyptian Nationalists that 
Britain intended to remain permanently seemed to be proved 
correct, for in December, 1914, the " veiled" protectorate of 



THE SUEZ CANAL AND EGYPT 355 

the country was declared formally to be in effect and the 
suzerainty of Turkey at an end. 

The Mohammedans, who compose ninety per cent of the 
population, had long looked forward to an independent, self- 
governing Egypt. The evident weakness of the Ottoman 
Empire since 1900 had given the Nationalists strong hope. 
The Young Turk revolt of 1908 further encouraged them in 
their wish for representative institutions, while the Italian 
and Balkan attacks on the Ottoman Empire made it evident 
that the "sick man" was moribund. Egypt's day seemed 
at hand. Since Abbas Hilmi succeeded Tewfik in 1892 the 
"unrest" has been continuous. The Nationalists have de- 
manded a completely constitutional regime, even the re- 
moval of the British control of the Government and the 
army. Much the same criticism has been leveled against 
British rule in Egypt as in India. The military administra- 
tion was felt to be a burden. The Egyptian Nationalists 
were strongly convinced that the country had been exploited 
to bring financial benefit to the foreigner. Above all, the 
Anglophobes have carped on the lack of any apparent plan 
for making Egypt serve primarily the Egyptians. 

Sir Eldon Gorst, the successor of Lord Cromer, was inter- 
ested in reform, but his amiable intentions were misinter- 
preted by the people. In 1910 Boutros Pasha, the Coptic 
Prime Minister, was murdered by a Mohammedan Nation- 
alist. Seditious agencies in intimate connection with the 
Young Turks were found in Cairo. In 1912 a plot to mur- 
der the Khedive, the Premier, and Lord Kitchener was un- 
earthed. Before the World War began, Lord Kitchener, as 
the British administrator, had strengthened his hold on the 
country. With the opening of the War of 1914 this ganglion 
of British dominion in the Old World became of supreme im- 
portance, for the Suez Canal needed protection, and Egypt 
was the country which would best serve this purpose, and at 
the same time serve also as a base of attack on the Turkish 
Empire. Accordingly, in December, 1914, the pro-German 
Khedive was deposed and Hussein Kamil became Sultan 
under Britain's "protection." 1 

1 For the relations between Great Britain and Egypt since 1914 see pp. 464 ff. 



356 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

This step was but the registration of the growing con- 
trol of Egypt, the occupation of which, at first regarded as 
temporary, became more definite with the passing of time. 
Great Britain found Egypt of such vital interest that a per- 
manent hold seemed justified. Politically the country of the 
Nile is of great value, because of its proximity to the road to 
India. Economically it has been highly useful as the source 
of the best raw cotton for the mills of Lancashire. This 
double interest illustrates the natural British attitude to the 
other Turkish possessions that border the great sea-road. 
They have become important to Great Britain because of 
their relation to the Indian highway. And the very high- 
way has increased in value as the British have added to their 
holdings along its course. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

In addition to the volumes noted in the previous Bibliographical Note, 
reference may be made to C. W. J. Orr, Cyprus under British Rule (Lon- 
don, 1918), and for the earlier history of British interests to Sir Julian S. 
Corbett's England in the Mediterranean: A Study of the Rise and Influence 
of British Power within the Straits, 1603-1713 (2 vols., London, 1904). Sir 
Harry H. Johnston, A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races, 
and H. A. Gibbons, The New Map of Africa, 1900-1916 (New York, 1917), 
are volumes of a general character that include Egypt and the Sudan in 
their survey. There is a considerable literature on Egypt among which 
mention should be made of Viscount Milner's England in Egypt (London, 
1892), the Earl of Cromer's Modern Egypt (2 vols., New York, 1916), Sir 
Sidney Low's Egypt in Transition (New York, 1914), and Sir Auckland 
Colvin's The Making of Modern Egypt (London, 1906). Sir Valentine 
Chirol's The Egyptian Problem (London, 1920) treats the period of the 
British occupation and includes an account of the uprising of 1919. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 

The last fifty years of South African development have been 
far different from the leisurely progress of earlier days. 
Before 1870 the provinces of the present Union had begun to 
take form and to reveal conditions that have become in- 
creasingly important. The Boers trekked north of the 
Orange and across the Vaal in the thirties to form the Orange 
Free State and the Transvaal; just at the middle of the cen- 
tury these two pastoral districts were granted self-govern- 
ment by the Sand River and Bloemfontein Conventions of 
1852 and 1854, respectively. Natal came under British 
control, in spite of the attempts of the Boers to occupy it. 
Cape Colony, with the largest British population, was the 
most prosperous of the South African groups. In 1872 it 
received responsible government, after the form already 
granted to Canada and Australasia. 

The relations of the Boers and the British conquerors had 
not been cordial. As we have found in an earlier chapter 
(xvi) the Dutch farmers became restless and dissatisfied 
under the rule of Britain. After the Great Trek the irrecon- 
cilables founded new homes where they could practice their 
pastoral form of life unhindered by standards they did not 
relish. Politically, the Boers were uninterested in the growth 
of the British Empire; they wanted the chance to be self-gov- 
erning after their own conservative standards. Their reli- 
gious and social viewpoints tended to separate Briton and 
Boer more and more as the nineteenth century progressed. 

CONTINUED RACIAL FRICTION 

The two Boer states north of the Orange were not destined 
long to continue in the isolation they desired. Yet for a 
quarter of a century after the republics were granted their 
independence the position of the two nationalities remained 
the same. But causes of further discord were appearing, 



358 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The Orange Free State had less difficulty than its northern 
neighbor, for it was under the wise guidance of President 
John Brand from 1863 to 1888. Although a believer in 
Dutch independence, his moderation and his willingness to 
cooperate with the Cape for the general welfare had helped 
to relieve tension. 

In the Transvaal the situation was different. The more 
irreconcilable and adventurous elements had trekked to this 
more northern Boer state. For some time after the Sand 
River Convention an anarchic condition existed. Various 
parts of the Transvaal were practically self-governing until 
a union under the presidency of Pretorius was effected in 
1864. In 1872 Pretorius had been succeeded by T. F. Bur- 
gers as President; by this time Paul Kruger, the most stub- 
born of the irreconcilables, had come to occupy an important 
place in Transvaal politics. The Transvaal Boers were cut 
off from the outside world and so felt freer to practice their 
exclusiveness than did the Boers of the Orange Free State. 

Dutch exclusiveness, however, was an impossible condition 
for several reasons. The Boers were gradually expanding 
their territories by settlements beyond the original districts 
to which they had trekked. In this way they came into con- 
tact with British pioneers, for British expansion was just 
as natural as Boer growth. The British missionaries had 
worked for several decades in central Africa and in the dis- 
tricts to the west and east of the Boer republics. As else- 
where, settlement and trade followed in their steps. It was 
also natural that British subjects should move into the Boer 
states. Even if pastoral pursuits had remained the chief in- 
terest of Boer and Briton, trouble would have developed 
sooner or later in South Africa. The irrepressible conflict 
was seriously hastened by the discovery of diamonds at Kim- 
berley and of gold on the Rand. These two sources of wealth 
attracted thousands of outsiders — Uitlanders — to the new 
industrial centers. With the intrusion of the foreigner and 
with his demand for equal privileges, trouble began that 
only ended with the Boer War at the close of the century. 

In 1867 a valuable diamond was picked up near the Orange 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 359 

River. A search for others was stimulated, with the result 
that "dry diggings" were discovered near the Vaal River at 
the western side of the Orange Free State. Here in 1871 the 
town of Kimberley was founded, and it rapidly became one 
of the most important mining centers in the world. This 
sterile district, known as Griqualand West, was the scene of 
remarkable changes. Diggers and capitalists, promoters and 
adventurers, brought a new sort of life to this remote section 
of South Africa. The former pastoral conditions were rudely 
upset by the new industry that grew so rapidly around Kim- 
berley. Mining had come to revolutionize South African 
conditions and to intensify racial feeling. 

The political effect of the discovery of diamonds was imme- 
diate. Kimberley lay in the land of the Griquas, whose 
chief was Waterboer. The Orange River sovereignty for- 
merly included this district, and presumably the Orange Free 
State possessed it in 1871. But the claim of the Free State 
was ignored by the diggers, who named their new town after 
the British Colonial Secretary of the time. The contro- 
versy between Waterboer and the Orange Free State as to 
the control of the region was referred to the arbitration of the 
Lieutenant-Governor of Natal; the award placed most of the 
diamond field in Waterboer's territory. The Griqua chief- 
tain, finding the burden of governing the tumultuous life of a 
mining camp too arduous, ceded his territories to the British, 
and Griqualand West became a Crown Colony in October, 
1871 . The people of the Free State naturally suspected such 
a transaction as prearranged, and strongly protested at the 
loss of this territory to their stronger neighbor the moment 
that it became valuable. In 1876 the Boers received £90,000 
as compensation from the British Government. 

The annexation of the diamond country in 1871 and of 
Basutoland, to the east of the Free State, a few years before, 
marked the beginnings of a British advance that resulted 
in the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. Gladstone's 
"Great Ministry," which had been characterized by a keen 
interest in liberal domestic reforms, but by a disinclination 
to a spirited and aggressive policy in foreign affairs, ended 



\ 



360 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

in 1874. The Conservatives under the leadership of Dis- 
raeli came to power in that year and remained in power for 
the rest of the decade. A strong interest was evidenced by 
Disraeli and his party in imperial matters. The purchase of 
the Suez Canal shares, the proclamation of Victoria as Empress 
of India, the " occupation" of the island of Cyprus, all took 
place during this decade. The annexation of the Transvaal 
was in line with the policy of the administration. 

Lord Carnarvon of the Colonial Office was greatly inter- 
ested in the confederation of the South African colonies. A 
well-known historian, J. A. Froude, was sent to the Cape to 
urge Carnarvon's scheme. The choice was not an altogether 
felicitous one, and the opposition to federation grew stronger. 
A conference was called in London in 1876, but it was no 
more successful. In the next year a Permissive Federation 
Act passed Parliament, by which machinery was provided if 
the colonies wished to use it. In 1877 Sir Bartle Frere was 
sent out as Governor of Cape Colony with instructions to 
further union. 

Although confederation seemed no nearer acceptance than 
in the days of Sir George Grey, there grew out of this general 
desire for a larger and better-knit British dominion in South 
Africa the addition of the Transvaal in 1877. Sir Theophilus 
Shepstone, Secretary of Native Affairs in Natal, was author- 
ized to visit the Transvaal, to inquire concerning disturbances 
that had been occurring, and, if it seemed wise and a suffi- 
cient number of inhabitants desired it, to annex the territory 
in question. It is true that conditions in the Boer republic 
were bad; the executive was greatly weakened and the 
finances of the state were so low that salaries remained un- 
paid. Wars with the Zulus and the menace of a further 
conflict were doing much to demoralize the state. Sh* >- 
stone, as a result of his visit to the Transvaal, professe -to 
find there a considerable interest in a more stable goA /)rn- 
ment, even if that government were British; therefore, in 
accordance with his instructions, he annexed the country in 
1877, promising that the Transvaal would have its own 
administration, its own laws, and legislative principles " com- 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 361 

patible with the circumstances of the country and the in- 
telligence of the people." 

It proved to be an unwise step. President Burgers pro- 
tested to no effect, except that he was allowed to retire on a 
British pension. The irreconcilables, notable among whom 
was Paul Kruger, began to do everything possible to bring 
about the freedom of the Transvaal. 

To make matters more difficult for the British, they found 
themselves with a Zulu war on their hands just at the close of 
this decade. The Zulu danger had been one of the causes for 
Boer weakness. Cetewayo, the Zulu chieftain, was follow- 
ing in the path of his ancestors; he and his followers were 
eager to dip their spears in blood. Sir Bartle Frere felt com- 
pelled to bring order into Zululand by force of arms. The 
conflict began with decisive defeats for the British, although 
they were able to break down the power of Cetewayo by 
July of 1879. In spite of the fact that the war ended victo- 
riously, it was disastrous for the administration, as it dissatis- 
fied the people at home. The quarrel with the natives was 
really a Transvaal quarrel which had been passed on to the 
British as a result of the annexation. The people at home 
were tired of the expense and the monotony of the seemingly 
endless wars with the natives. 

Shortly after the annexation Sir Theophilus Shepstone 
was succeeded by a less sympathetic Governor, and the 
Boers felt more restless than ever. Ill feeling in the Trans- 
vaal was increased by the non-fulfillment of the promises re- 
garding representative government; a belated constitution 
was granted in 1880. Unfortunately, in that same year the 
Transvaal question was injected into British politics. The 
Liberals under Gladstone took the Conservative action in 
South Africa as a convenient point for attack during the po- 
litical campaign. Gladstone in the Mid-Lothian speeches 
condemned the policy that had been paramount during the 
Disraeli administration: "If these acquisitions were as val- 
uable as they are valueless, I would repudiate them, because 
they were obtained by means dishonorable to the character 
of our country." Naturally the victory of Gladstone in the 



362 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

spring of 1880 gave the Transvaal Boers great hope. As 
Gladstone did not act in the spirit of the Mid-Lothian 
speeches, the Boers of the Transvaal, under the lead of Kru- 
ger, Pretorius, and Joubert, declared the republic reestab- 
lished. 

In the war that followed the Boers quickly brought the 
Transvaal under their control. Sir George Colley hastened 
up from Maritzburg in Natal to relieve the British garrisons. 
The Boers disputed his advance at Laing's Nek, where the 
British were defeated. The crowning disaster came at the 
end of February, 1881, at Majuba Hill. Here, on the west- 
ern side of Laing's Nek, at the northern end of Natal, the 
forces of Colley occupied the hill in order to turn the Boer po- 
sition. The Boers fearlessly ascended the hill and completely 
defeated the British force. Colley and one hundred of his 
followers were killed; the Boers lost but two men. The Brit- 
ish immediately agreed on an armistice and terms were ar- 
ranged that gave the Boers practical independence. 

The Pretoria Convention of August, 1881, granted large 
concessions to the Transvaal. There was to be a British 
Resident, British troops could be marched across the country, 
and the British were to control the Transvaal's foreign rela- 
tions. Otherwise, the Boers were practically their own mas- 
ters. The " Transvaal State," as it is called in the Conven- 
tion, was not satisfied with these concessions. Kruger and 
his followers pressed for more privileges, which were granted 
in the London Convention of 1884. The "Transvaal State" 
became definitely the " South African Republic." "With 
a view to promote the peace and order of the said state" 
changes were made in "certain provisions which are inconven- 
ient." l The right to march troops across the country was 
discontinued, and the supervision of native affairs was turned 
over to the Transvaal. The British control of foreign affairs 
was reduced to the right of vetoing a treaty within six 
months. 

The result of the return of the Transvaal to independence 

1 The text of these Conventions will be found in Lucas, South Africa, n, 
488-508. 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 363 

in conjunction with a British defeat in battle was to em- 
bolden the Boers with the belief that they could go farther 
in their aims without serious hindrance. It was a mistake to 
grant concessions to the Transvaal after Majuba Hill. The 
Boers were not grateful for their independence; they felt that 
they had won it by force. 
l The vacillating British policy and its apparent willingness 
to allow defeat to remain unavenged led to a growth of the 
feeling of independence in the other South African colonies as 
well as in the Transvaal. Nationalist sentiment came to a 
concrete expression in 1882 in Cape Colony, when a congress 
was held at Graaf Reinet which declared for a united South 
Africa under its own flag. The organization formed was 
known as the Afrikander Bond. The feeling of the Dutch 
as a whole is expressed in 1881 in the address to President 
Brand on the part of the victorious Transvaal: "Freedom 
shall arise in South Africa like the sun from the morning 
clouds, as freedom rose in the United States of America. 
Then shall it be Africa for the Afrikander, from the Zambesi 
to Simon's Bay." 

BRITISH EXPANSION 

The prophecy of an Afrikander union under its own flag 
was not to be fulfilled, at least in the near future. Other 
forces were at work which were to checkmate the Boer aspi- 
rations, for about 1885 a number of occurrences rendered 
British control of southern Africa more certain in spite of the 
vacillation of a few years before. 

For one thing, imperialistic Great Britain was taking pos- 
session of many territories whose relationships had hitherto 
been uncertain. To the west, the north, and the east of the 
Boer republics the British Empire was extending its sway. 
In doing so the Government was but following in the wake of 
the missionaries. 

By 1825 the missionaries had gone north of the Orange 
River, and in that year the town of Philippolis had been es- 
tablished and named in honor of the doughty opponent of the 
Boers, Dr. Philip. In 1816 work was begun among the 



364 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Bechuanas west of the Transvaal district, and the famous 
missionary, Robert Moffat, had settled at Kuruman in 1821. 
About the time that the Boer trekkers were driving the Mat- 
abele out of the Transvaal, the British missionaries were ex- 
tending their operations to this people. The Boers, with 
equal determination, expelled the missionaries and the sav- 
ages from the country between the Orange and the Limpopo. 
In 1840 the greatest of modern missionaries, David Living- 
stone, went to South Africa. He married a daughter of 
Robert Moffat, and became a worthy successor of that pio- 
neer laborer. By the mid-century he was working as far north 
as Kolobeng. His intense interest in exploration as well as 
his love for the blacks led him to range far and wide. In 1849 
he discovered Lake Ngami, north of the Kalahari Desert. It 
was not long before he reached the Zambesi River. In 1854 
he made his way to the west coast of Africa at Loanda; he 
then returned eastward and crossed the continent by way of 
the Zambesi to the Indian Ocean. It was at this time that 
he discovered the great Victoria Falls, where the town of 
Livingstone is now located. 

On his return to England in 1856, Livingstone was show- 
ered with honors and attention. In the next year appeared 
his Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, a work 
that very greatly served to increase British interest in the 
interior of the continent. When the explorer returned to 
Africa in 1858, he no longer went as a representative of the 
London Missionary Society, but as the commander of an ex- 
pedition to explore central and eastern Africa. In 1859 he 
discovered Lake Nyasa; eight years later he was on the shores 
of the immense Lake Tanganyika, laboring to solve the ques- 
tion of the sources of the Nile and the Congo. Finally ex- 
haustion overtook the tireless worker, and he died in 1873 
about sixty miles south of Lake Bangweolo in Northern 
Rhodesia. It was truly a typical act that his native followers 
should have buried his heart in the center of the continent 
which he did so much to open to European civilization. 

Largely as a result of the work of Livingstone and Stanley, 
Africa became of great interest to the European nations. 1 

1 See p. 290. 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 365 

By 1885 there was a strong movement among the Powers of 
Europe to partition the Dark Continent. The year previous 
Germany had declared a protectorate over what came to be 
known as German South- West Africa. Contrary to the terms 
of the London Convention, the Boers began to spread out 
into Bechuanaland, which lay between the Boer states and 
German South- West Africa. Bechuanaland, as the "Suez 
Canal to Southern Central Africa," was very necessary for 
British interests which had already been established farther 
inland, and accordingly it was annexed in 1885 out of fear of 
a possible connection here between Boers and Germans. For 
similar reasons, Zululand on the eastern side of the Trans- 
vaal was taken by Great Britain in 1887. Parties of Boers 
had gone into the country, and there were rumors of a pend- 
ing German annexation. In the same year Tongaland was 
added, at the request of the native queen. Thus the Boers 
were shut in on both the east and the west. 

North of the Transvaal — that is, beyond the Limpopo 
River — was the Mashona country into which the Matabele 
had retired when driven from the Transvaal. The Matabele 
chieftain, Lobengula, ruled the country from his capital at 
Buluwayo. The possibilities of this unknown territory were 
thought to be very great. When gold was found in the 
Transvaal it was not unnatural to expect wealth from the ad- 
joining country. In 1888 the British made an agreement 
with Lobengula, by which the Matabele chieftain promised 
to make no treaties with foreign powers and to dispose of 
none of his territories to other nations. During the next 
year a charter was granted to the British South Africa Com- 
pany for the purpose of developing this district, with due 
consideration for native interests. 

In 1890 a pioneer expedition was sent into this new country 
and forts were established at various points. Three years 
later, after a war with the Matabele, the capital was occupied. 
As the country furnished excellent grazing-lands the British 
settlers came in increasing numbers during the years follow- 
ing the British occupation. 

Matabeleland no longer goes by its old name; on the map 



366 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

of Africa it appears as Rhodesia. It was so called from Cecil 
Rhodes, one of the chief promoters of the British South Africa 
Company, and a principal figure in the development of Brit- 
ish imperialism in opposition to the Boers under Kruger. 
Cecil Rhodes, the frail son of a vicar of Hertfordshire, was 
born in 1853. He prepared for matriculation at Oxford, but 
his health forbade his entry, and instead he was sent to a 
brother's cotton plantation in Natal, where it was thought 
the dry and bracing air would give him back his strength. 
He arrived in South Africa just as the diamond fields of Kim- 
berley were being opened. With a " bucket and a spade, sev- 
eral volumes of the classics and a Greek lexicon," he followed 
the crowd to Kimberley. Soon he outdistanced all others in 
procuring wealth, being one of a group that organized the De 
Beers Mining Corporation in 1880. In the next year he ob- 
tained his degree at Oriel College, Oxford, having spent al- 
ternate half-years since 1876 at the university. No stranger 
figure is to be found in the annals of the British Empire than 
that of this health-seeking Oxford student coming to South 
Africa, where he rapidly rose to a commanding position 
among the diamond kings of Kimberley. Wealth, however, 
was not wholly an end with him; it became a means by which 
he hoped to further his ideas of empire for Britain. He was 
proud of the Empire, and determined that it should not be 
lost to Britain in South Africa. 

In 1881 Cecil Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament, at a 
time that seemed especially untoward for one with his ideals. 
The disaster at Majuba Hill occurred in that year, and the 
Afrikander Bond was organized in the next. At first Rhodes 
was almost alone. But his advocacy of expansion under the 
flag was joined with a strong feeling that Boer and Briton 
should be on an equality. Gradually he won the Cape Dutch 
support by standing for protection in behalf of agriculture; 
Jan Hendrik Hcfmeyer, for many years the controller of the 
Bond, was his close friend. The northern expansion of the 
eighties, which we have already traced, was owing in large 
measure to the enthusiasm of Rhodes. By the end of the 
decade he became the head of the British South Africa Com- 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 367 

pany which controlled Rhodesia, was master of the entire 
diamond business in Kimberley, and became Premier of Cape 
Colony in 1890. For the next six years he labored by means 
that were not always scrupulous to bring to fruition his 
scheme of a British South Africa. He found a worthy oppo- 
nent in President Kruger of the Transvaal. During the last 
decade of the century the rivalry of Rhodes and Kruger, of 
Briton and Boer, led to a bitter conflict. 

THE APPROACH OF WAR 

A profound effect was produced on the growing ill feeling 
between the Boers and the British by the discovery of gold in 
the Transvaal Free State. In 1884 the precious metal was 
found in quartz formation at Barberton in the eastern part of 
the republic. Richer deposits were soon discovered in 1885 
south of Pretoria on the Witwatersrand (or white-waters- 
ridge). The deposits, consisting of a conglomerate called 
" banket," were found in beds that could be traced for long 
distances and for several thousand feet in depth. The Rand 
immediately took rank as one of the great gold-producing 
centers of the world. It eclipsed both California and Aus- 
tralia, which had created such a sensation thirty-five years 
before. To-day over a third of the world's annual gold pro- 
duction is obtained from the Transvaal. It was but natural 
that another "rash" should take place. In 1886 the city of 
Johannesburg was founded. In a few months it had out- 
grown Pretoria, in ten years its population was over one hun- 
dred thousand, and to-day it is the largest and the richest 
city of South Africa. 

The effect on the Transvaal of the Rand discoveries was 
far-reaching. The comparatively poor pastoral republic 
suddenly leaped to affluence. This was not necessarily a 
misfortune for the Boers, but accompanying this increase in 
wealth were a number of factors that were perceived with 
foreboding by Kruger and his compatriots. The influx of 
Uitlanders was not welcomed, for this isolated farmers' re- 
public was faced with problems that an alien population 
brought into the country. The gold-seekers were largely 



368 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

British and they had standards of living and conceptions of 
progress that the Boers were unwilling to accept. Machinery 
and railways, commercial intercourse, and the growth of 
democratic government were but added complications for 
the Boers in their effort to keep free from British control. 

Trouble soon developed between the Transvaal Govern- 
ment and the Uitlanders, for the Boers hampered the work of 
the miners in many ways. Railway construction was hesi- 
tatingly allowed, so that transportation, so essential a part of 
an inland industry, was inadequately provided. All mate- 
rial intended for the Rand was charged with heavy customs 
duties. This was especially true of the food-supplies. The 
price of coal to work the engines was made very expensive by 
the heavy freights. The dynamite so necessary for the blast- 
ing was the monopoly of a single company, which proceeded 
to make enormous profits from the concession. The large 
revenue obtained in these and other ways from the new in- 
dustry went to the enrichment of the Boer state, but it was 
not used for the benefit of the Johannesburg miners. The 
courts used Dutch, with which the Uitlanders as a rule were 
unfamiliar, and the educational system made no provision 
for the teaching of English. The Uitlander was powerless 
to work in his own behalf, for he possessed no political 
privileges; in 1882 the residence requirement for the fran- 
chise had been made five years, and in 1890 it was fixed at 
ten. 

Under such conditions the Uitlanders began to agitate for 
reform. In 1892 they organized the Transvaal National 
Union to obtain " political rights and the redress of griev- 
ances." In 1894 some British subjects were forced to serve 
in levies used to quell native uprisings. In the next year the 
drifts, or fords of the Vaal River, through which goods came 
from the Cape, were declared closed. The British Govern- 
ment, through the High Commissioner of South Africa, had 
to intervene at this point to prevent distinct violations of 
former agreements. 

By 1895 the Uitlanders were completely out of patience. 
A plot was formed to overthrow the Transvaal Government. 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 369 

The Uitlanders had come to an understanding with Cecil 
Rhodes, then Prime Minister of Cape Colony, by which out- 
side assistance was promised the conspirators. Guns were 
sent to Johannesburg and a force under Dr. Jameson — an 
intimate friend of Rhodes — was collected at Mafeking to 
cooperate with the Uitlanders. It was arranged that the 
revolution should occur just at the end of the year and Dr. 
Jameson was then to hurry to the assistance of the uprising, 
while Cecil Rhodes was to keep the Dutch quiet in the Cape 
Colony and urge British governmental intervention. But 
the revolution in Johannesburg was delayed on account of 
a disagreement among the Uitlanders. Unfortunately Dr. 
Jameson was so impatient that he invaded the Transvaal 
with five hundred men on January 29th, even though a 
revolution had not yet started on the Rand. The Raid was 
premature and unwise. The entire force was captured a few 
days later a few miles west of Johannesburg. 

The whole affair tended to strengthen the Transvaal Gov- 
ernment, for the Raid seemed to show that British imperial- 
ists had worked from the outside to overthrow the Dutch re- 
public. A few days after the Raid the Kaiser startled the 
world by a telegram to Kruger, which aroused a storm of re- 
sentment in Britain. It read: "I express to you my sincere 
congratulations that without appealing to the help of friendly 
Powers you and your people have succeeded in repelling with 
your own forces the armed bands which had broken into your 
country, and in maintaining the independence of your coun- 
try against foreign aggression." 

Indeed, the Raid was quite indefensible. Jameson and 
his chief followers were tried and condemned in British 
courts. Cecil Rhodes was stripped of his honors, forced to 
give up the chairmanship of the British South Africa Com- 
pany, and compelled to resign as Premier of Cape Colony. 
It is clear that the British Government was not concerned in 
the affair. An exhaustive inquiry was made by the House of 
Commons, which found Rhodes at serious fault for his ac- 
tion, but which found that the High Commissioner of South 
Africa, Sir Hercules Robinson, and the Colonial Secretary, 



370 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Joseph Chamberlain, were ignorant of the conspiracy. The 
report of the Committee of Inquiry concluded that grave 
injury had been done to British influence in South Africa; 
"Public confidence was shaken, race feeling embittered, and 
serious difficulties were created with neighboring states." 

Certainly from this time on matters grew rapidly worse. 
Kruger's heart was hardened against any concessions. As 
for the Uitlanders, they were worse off than ever; the leaders 
of the revolt were heavily fined, a severe press law was 
passed, and public meetings were restricted. The Uitlanders 
were still practically disenfranchised. In 1898 a British sub- 
ject in Johannesburg was shot in his home by a Boer police- 
man who entered without a warrant. Colored British sub- 
jects were ill-treated and Uitlander meetings prevented. In 
the spring of 1899 the Uitlanders sent a petition to Queen 
Victoria, in which it was pointed out at length that "the con- 
dition of Your Majesty's subjects in this state has become 
wellnigh intolerable." In May Sir Alfred Milner, who had 
been appointed High Commissioner of South Africa, tele- 
graphed to England that he believed intervention was neces- 
sary "to obtain for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal a fair 
share of the government of the country which owes every- 
thing to their exertions." A conference in June at Bloem- 
fontein was of no avail, as Kruger took the position that the 
granting of concessions would mean handing his country over 
to the foreigner. In the latter part of September, 1899, the 
Transvaal and the Free State — which had now united with 
its sister-republic — sent an ultimatum to the British, and 
war was the result. 

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 

The British were quite unprepared for the conflict. The 
Boers, on the other hand, were fighting on familiar ground, 
had chosen their own time to begin, and were defending their 
fatherland. Two days after the ultimatum the Boers began 
the war by invading Natal. The British forces were pushed 
southward until they were surrounded and besieged in Lady- 
smith. Kimberley and Mafeking, on the other side of the 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 371 

Boer states, were soon in a similar plight. At first everything 
went against the British; Buller's attempts to relieve Lady- 
smith were slow and very costly, and Methuen's efforts to 
succor Kimberley resulted in several severe defeats. The 
news of these disasters was received with consternation by 
the Empire as a whole, for it was commonly thought that the 
war would be over in six weeks. Thereupon Lord Roberts 
and Lord Kitchener were promptly sent to retrieve the situ- 
ation, and the various parts of the Empire offered military 
assistance. 

In February, 1900, Kimberley and Ladysmith were re- 
lieved and the advance on Bloemfontein and Pretoria was 
begun. On March 13th Bloemfontein was entered. In May 
Mafeking was succored and Johannesburg occupied. On 
June 5, 1900, the British entered the Transvaal capital, Pre- 
toria. Thereupon the two Boer states were annexed. The 
occupation of the two capitals did not mean that the war was 
at an end, for the Boers carried on a guerilla struggle with 
great bravery for some time. Kitchener's severe methods 
and the systematic occupation of the country, which was 
facilitated by the gathering of Boer non-combatants into con- 
centration camps, finally wore down the opposition. By 
May, 1902, the republics were ready for peace. 
-~ The Treaty of Preto ria provided for the subjugation of the 
Free State and the Transvaal to British authority. But the 
terms were not ungenerous. Repatriation of prisoners was 
to take place as rapidly as possible. The Dutch language 
was to be taught in the schools of the defeated states and to 
be allowed in the courts of law. The military administra- 
tions of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were to be 
replaced by civil government, and, "as soon as circumstances 
permit," representative institutions leading to self-govern- 
ment were to be introduced. The expenses of the war were 
not to be defrayed by a land tax on the Boer states. The 
sum of three million pounds was to be placed in the hands of 
a commission for the purpose of helping the war-scourged 
people to rebuild their homes and to obtain seed and live 
stock and implements. In addition to this amount, loans 



372 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

were to be made free of interest for two years and thereafter 
at three per cent to help in the work of reconstruction. 

THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 

After the conflict the work of reestablishing the defeated 
people was pressed forward. Lord Milner had been ap- 
\ pointed Governor of the two Boer states, and until his resig- 
nation in 1905 he worked earnestly for the betterment, mate- 
rially and politically, of the states under his care. He formed 
a nominated Legislative Council for the Transvaal to which 
the prominent Boer leaders were invited. Within three 
years a further step was taken, by which a constitution was 
granted to this state, providing for a Legislative Council, of 
which a portion of the members were elected on a very wide 
franchise. 

In 1905 came the change from the Conservative Govern- 
ment under Mr. Arthur Balfour, which had carried on the 
war, to a Liberal Government under Sir Henry Campbell- 
Bannerman. The newly installed party immediately went 
the full step of giving the Transvaal responsible government. 
The Constitution of 1906 provided for two chambers; in case 
of disagreement they were to sit together, a provision that 
gave the real power into the hands of the elected Legislative 
Assembly. The Prime Minister of the Transvaal was the 
former Boer general, Louis Botha. This early grant to the 
Transvaal of representative institutions was a daring but 
successful move. Two years later responsible government 
was given to the Orange Free State, where the Boers came 
into power under the leadership of Christian de Wet, another 
brilliant military leader in the late war. 

By this time the movement for the union of all the British 
colonies in South Africa was growing stronger. Confedera- 
tion had been advocated prematurely by Sir George Grey in 
1856 and by Lord Carnarvon and his appointee, Sir Bartle 
Frere, in the seventies. After the Boer War the feeling for 
union became widespread for various reasons. The South 
African states suffered from want of a concerted policy with 
regard to the native population. Labor, especially for the 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 373 

mines, was a fruitful source of misunderstanding. For exam- 
ple, the introduction of Chinese coolies during the reconstruc- 
tion days in order to quicken the production of wealth, was 
the cause of much criticism. The tariffs and the railways 
needed to be controlled in a way that would be fair to all the 
states. Lord Milner urged greater cooperation, and a num- 
ber of his assistants in reconstruction, notably Lionel Curtis, 
did much to further the federation movement by publications 
and agitation. Lord Selborne, the Colonial Secretary, was in 
favor of a closer union and so expressed himself in a note- 
worthy memorandum in 1907. At this time also a resolution 
to this effect was presented in the Cape Assembly. 

In 1908 an inter-colonial conference was held in Pretoria to 
discuss the railway rates and the tariff. At that meeting 
General Smuts moved that a National Convention be called 
to draw up plans for union; toward the close of 1908 the 
National Convention met in Durban. Twelve delegates 
came from the Cape, the Transvaal sent eight, Natal and 
the Orange Free State were represented by five each. The 
Transvaal representatives included the former Boer generals, 
Botha and Smuts, and the old Uitlanders, Farrar and Fitz- 
patrick. The chairman of the Convention was Sir J. H. de 
Villiers, Chief Justice of the Cape Colony. The delegates, 
first at Durban and in later sessions at Cape Town, worked 
out the union constitution behind closed doors. It was 
published in February, 1909, and, after some changes, it was 
accepted by the four states. Then it went to the Imperial 
Parliament at Westminster and received the royal assent in 
September, 1909. 

The constitution of South Africa provides for a close union 
with power in the central Government instead of a federation 
like that of Australia. The adoption of this unitary form of 
government seemed natural. The divisions in South Africa 
were more along racial than territorial lines. The difficulties 
which it was hoped union would solve were matters that 
needed a strong central administration. The tariff, the rail- 
ways, the native, could be best handled by a single central 
authority. Yet the very emphasis on a unitary system has 



374 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

caused some dissatisfaction, which a looser federal organiza- 
tion might not have aroused. 

The Governor-General represents the home Government 
as in the other dominions. There is a Senate and a House of 
Assembly. The former is composed of forty members, eight 
appointed by the Governor-General-in-Council and the re- 
mainder selected by the colonial legislatures, eight from each 
province. Four of the appointed senators " shall be selected 
on the ground mainly of their thorough acquaintance, by rea- 
son of their official experience or otherwise, with the reason- 
able wants and wishes of the colored races in South Africa." 
The House of Assembly is elected by the people, the prov- 
inces deciding their own franchise regulations. The Execu- 
tive is a Cabinet of seven members responsible to Parliament. 
There are two capitals, the Parliament sitting at Cape Town, 
and the administration centering in Pretoria. A provision 
that contributed much to the growth of good feeling was the 
arrangement by which the English and Dutch languages were 
both official languages "ona footing of equality." 

On the organization of. the Union, General Botha became 
Prime Minister. He headed a Boer party which had a ma- 
jority over the combined British and Labor representatives. 
In 1913 the Boer party split, the moderate Boers following 
General Botha and forming the South African Party. The 
extremists, comprising the National Boer Party, were led by 
General Hertzog. The outbreak of the war in Europe in 
1914 seemed to the irreconcilables to offer the chance for a 
recovery of Boer independence, but the ease with which the 
rebellion was suppressed was the direct result of the wisdom 
of the British Government in having granted such generous 
terms of self-government to their late enemies. South Africa 
felt that it had gained freedom and something more — the 
privileges which go with inclusion in that great community of 
nations which make up the British Empire. 

South Africa has had a checkered history, in which strain 
and stress have been constant. Two rival white races have 
settled in a country peopled by a predominant black popula- 
tion. In 1921 but twenty per cent of the total population 



THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA 375 

of seven millions was white. The white peoples had strug- 
gled for supremacy with the blacks in many wars, and then 
the whites fought out their own difficulties, with the result 
that the Empire of Britain won. There are irreconcilables 
yet among the Boers; it would be strange if such were not the 
case. The government, however, is so completely in the 
hands of the white inhabitants, with so little interference 
from the authorities in Great Britain, that the Union of 
South Africa — the youngest of the self-governing Domin- 
ions — would seem to be wise if it worked out its difficulties 
under the flag of the Empire. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

J. A. Froude's Two Letters on South Africa (reprinted 1900) and Oceana 
(reprinted 1901) give the attitude of Lord Carnarvon, while the other side 
of the situation is handled by W. J. Leyds, The First Annexation of the 
Transvaal (London, 1906). For the South African War there is W. B. 
Worsf old, Lord Milner's Work in South Africa from the Commencement in 
1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 (London, 1906). The first volume 
of the Times History of the War in South Africa, edited by I;. S. Amery, 
gives a full, if somewhat partial, account of the events leading to the con- 
flict. A prominent Uitlander has recorded his experiences in Sir J. P. 
Fitzpatrick's The Transvaal from Within (London, 1900), and the Boer 
attitude is expressed in W. J. Leyds, The Transvaal Surrounded (London, 
1919) . Sir Charles Lucas covers the period from 1895 to 1910 in the second 
volume of his South Africa and A. Wyatt Tilby's account terminates with 
1913. The best life of Cecil Rhodes is by Basil Williams (London, 1921), 
to which are appended useful notes on books dealing with the period cov- 
ered by this chapter. H. A. Gibbons, The New Map of Africa, treats the 
period from the Boer War to 1916. For statistics see the Official Year 
Book of the Union of South Africa (Pretoria). Egerton's Federations and 
Unions within the British Empire (Oxford, 1911) treats fully as well as re- 
prints the Constitution of the Union. A recent source book is that of 
G. W. Eybers, Select Constitutional Documents Illustrative of South African 
History, 1795-1910 (London, 1918). T 



CHAPTER XXII 

MODERN AUSTRALASIA 

In considering the recent years of Australasian growth we 
shall first treat of New Zealand, as it grew to be more and 
more distinct from the colonies on the continent of Australia. 
Although it had an altogether different native problem, the 
growth of New Zealand, both politically and materially, has 
been strikingly like that of its neighbors to the west. Sir 
George Grey had done notable work as the executive of New 
Zealand from 1845 to 1863. During Grey's administration 
in the land of the Maoris, the government had been consoli- 
dated by the Constitution Act which went into effect in 1853. 
By this Act the three colonies of the North Island — Auck- 
land, New Plymouth, and Wellington — and the three on 
South Island — Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago — were 
made into provinces which were bound together by a Gover- 
nor, a Legislative Council, and a House of Representatives. 
As pointed out in an earlier chapter (xv), the six colonies 
were not extensions from one original foundation, but settle- 
ments that had been formed independently. As a result, 
provincial feeling was strong from the first, and the members 
were but loosely bound together by the Constitution of 1852. 
The closer union was to come only with the growth of the 
population and the break-up of the original units by the 
formation of new provinces in which the local feeling was not 
so strong. 

MAORI TROUBLES IN NEW ZEALAND 

The Governor under the Act of 1852 did not share the con- 
duct of native affairs with the assemblies, and it was natural 
that friction should result. In fact, the Maori was the ab- 
sorbing interest in New Zealand for some years after the new 
constitution went into effect. The problem was similar to 
that in South Africa, for in both colonies the aborigines were 
highly developed and adept in war. In South Africa the 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 377 

possession of extensive flocks and herds caused bitterness be- 
tween the whites and the blacks; in New Zealand the en- 
croachment of the settlers on the land of the Maoris eventu- 
ated in serious trouble. 

Not long after the departure of Sir George Grey for South 
Africa, trouble with the Maoris recommenced. An unsym- 
pathetic governor and rapacious settlers led to a neglect of 
the native interests so solemnly promised in the Treaty of 
Waitangi 1 and in the Constitution. The Maori found him- 
self outside the protection of English law, neglected and 
slowly losing his property. In order to protect themselves, 
the aborigines formed a sort of government of their own, with 
a king at the head. Although the "king movement" did 
not include all the tribes, it became a means of unifying the 
Maoris when trouble actually materialized. 

War broke out in 1859 over a land matter. The settlers at 
New Plymouth — on the west coast of the North Island — 
wanted more land. A certain native offered to sell some 
land, known as the "Waitara Block," near New Plymouth, 
but the chief declared the land the property of the tribe. 
The Governor ignored the chief, but, on attempting to take 
possession of the tract by force, he found himself opposed by 
the natives. It was ten years before the conflict or series of 
conflicts with the natives came to an end. The Maoris re- 
garded the struggle as a war for their country and fought 
with great determination. The wild character of the dis- 
tricts they occupied added to the difficulties of the British 
troops. In addition, the natives were expert fighters, 
equipped with firearms and possessed with good defense 
works in their pahs. 2 

Sir George Grey was sent back to New Zealand in 1861 to 

1 See p. 254. 

2 A pah was not unlike an early mediaeval stronghold. It showed considera- 
ble engineering skill, consisting of ditches, double lines of palisades, and towers. 
Within were barracks and ovens and magazines. Great care was taken to pro- 
vide a means of escape, if the occupants should be hard pressed by the enemy; 
there were secret paths through the near-by swamps by which the pah was 
usually partially surrounded. In Jenks, History of the Australasian Colonies, 
p. 288, and Henderson, Life of Sir George Grey, p. 210, plans of these curious 
structures are given. 



378 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

make peace between native and settler. His second adminis- 
tration lasted until 1868. It was one of constant trouble 
with the Maoris. He advised and arranged for the return of 
the Waitara Block to the natives, but, before the matter 
could be settled, some British soldiers were shot from an am- 
bush near New Plymouth. The renewed hostilities lasted 
until 1868. The British gradually wore out the Maoris, con- 
fiscating and occupying the land of the " rebels." 

In the end, the Maori was not exterminated, nor was he 
completely deprived of his lands. In the South Island and 
certain parts of North Island, Dotably on the east coast, 
the natives have accepted the white man's civilization to a 
considerable extent. The King Country — the central part 
of the North Island — is yet poorly developed. The Maoris 
cling to the land, but often do not evince a great interest in 
the development of the several million acres they still possess. 
As it is more than they actually need, if compared with the 
holdings of the whites, the alienation of further sections may 
take place if the land is not properly developed. 

Since 1870 there has been little trouble, and for the past 
thirty years the two peoples have dwelt together peacefully. 
It is impossible to conjecture what the future of the Maoris 
will be. In 1850 the natives were in a majority, but the 
incoming of wh? Le settlers has changed the proportion. The 
Maoris are now but five per cent of the total population. 
For a time the actual number of natives was decreasing; in 
the past ten years, however, they have been increasing 
slightly, numbering about fifty thousand in 1921. As a re- 
sult of their ownership of land they are on an equality with 
the white settlers. Near the close of the war (1921) an Act 
was passed by which four native members were elected to the 
House of Representatives. The Maoris are represented, 
also, in the Council. Although racial intermixture is not tak- 
ing place to any extent, the present tolerant attitude of the 
two races should lead to a gradual growth of the Maori peo- 
ple. They have made wonderful advances in civilization, 
when it is remembered that half a century ago they were liv- 
ing as cannibals. 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 379 

NEW ZEALAND UNIFICATION 

The Constitution Act of 1852 had provided for a federal sys- 
tem by which the six provinces were given considerable local 
power. There was reason enough at the time for this type of 
government, since New Zealand was not yet thickly settled 
and since the provinces were distinctly separated by conflict- 
ing interests and by natural physical barriers. As time went 
on the provincial system came to be less and less satisfactory. 
The creation of several new provinces only helped to empha- 
size the need for a stronger central government. The seat of 
federal administration became better located in 1865, when 
the government of the provinces was transferred from Auck- 
land to Wellington. The increasing importance of South Is- 
land had much to do with the choice of this more accessible 
capital. 

The final step toward unity came in 1876. In that year 
the provincial system was abolished. It was not done with- 
out a struggle, however. Sir George Grey, who had lived in 
retirement since 1868, came back into public life to defend 
the system he had done so much to establish. He was 
elected Superintendent for the Province of Auckland and 
chosen as a member of the House of Representatives. 
Nevertheless, his eloquence was unable to prevent what the 
progress of the islands had made imperative — the abolition 
of the Provincial Councils. Since 1876 there has been but 
one government for New Zealand. 

One of the principal objections to the old system was the 
difficulty of rapidly developing the public interests of the 
islands. What was called the Public Works Policy was the 
colony's main interest from 1868 to 1890, a development in 
which Sir Julius Vogel took the lead. After a central Min- 
istry of Public Works had been created in 1870, the New- 
Zealand Government borrowed large sums by which to force 
forward the colony's growth. Railways were to be con- 
structed from end to end of each island. Labor for the im- 
provement policy and settlers to take up the waste lands 
were to come from immigration. Systematic efforts were 



380 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

made to revive an interest in New Zealand as a place attrac- 
tive to British and European immigrants. As the Maori 
wars had given the islands a bad reputation, commissioners 
were sent to Europe to correct evil impressions and to 
"boom" the country. An Emigrants' and Colonists' Aid 
Corporation was established in London, by which liberal 
financial assistance was given to prospective settlers. So 
successful was this policy that New Zealand's population 
doubled in thirteen years. The revenue increased even more 
rapidly, for that of 1873 was double that of 1871. 

Sir George Grey was a believer in the Public Works Policy, 
and also held advanced ideas about the taxation of the land 
and its release to the small farmers. In his premiership of 
1877-79 the high tide of this "boom" was reached. During 
the next decade there was considerable depression, causing a 
necessary retrenchment on the incautious policy of Sir Julius 
Vogel, but there was no serious delay in New Zealand's 
growth. 

RECENT PROGRESS IN NEW ZEALAND 

Since 1890 New Zealand has been the theater of highly 
dramatic and novel acts of radical legislation in many fields. 
Sir George Grey may well be regarded as the progenitor of the 
progressive party which has been in power since 1890. The 
purpose of Grey and his successors has been the destruction 
of private monopoly and the extension of the power of the 
people. Noteworthy in the list of leaders in this reform 
movement was John Ballance, who assumed office in 1891; 
under his guidance the new policy of State Socialism was 
definitely inaugurated. When he died in 1893 he was suc- 
ceeded by his lieutenant, Richard John Seddon. Gifted with 
courage, enthusiasm, and a robust constitution, Seddon was 
the dominating power in New Zealand politics from 1893 
until his death in 1906. After that year Seddon's party was 
led by Sir Joseph Ward. The legislation enacted under the 
leadership of these men dealt with taxation, labor conditions, 
and various social matters. In addition, the state has taken 
an increasingly important part in many industries. 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 381 

Noteworthy constitutional changes have been made. In 
1879 triennial parliaments and manhood suffrage were in- 
troduced. In 1893, at the opening of the new legislative era, 
women of both races were given the vote on the same terms 
as men. In 1896 plural voting was abolished. Twelve years 
later a scheme for registering the real wish of the majority 
was established by the introduction of the second ballot; by 
this provision the two highest candidates in a group in which 
no one has received a majority are voted on a second time. 

Taxation, before the nineties, had been imposed on prop- 
erty in general, but in 1891 the property tax was replaced 
by a taxation on land and incomes. In both cases the tax 
was graduated, with a decided a hardening-up" for the 
holders of wealth. By this system the land and the wealth 
have been more generally distributed and the burden for 
state expenditures more equitably placed. In 1918 half of 
New Zealand's receipts were realized from the income tax. 

The principal reason for the graduated land tax was the 
holding of a great share of the usable land by a compara- 
tively few people. In 1891 one million acres of land were 
held by fifty absentee landlords, and nearly half of the ten 
million acres under private ownership was in holdings of over 
ten thousand acres in size. This situation needed sharp treat- 
ment, and it certainly received it at the hands of the Ballance- 
Seddon reforming party. In addition to the graduated tax 
on land, provision was made for the purchase of large estates 
from their private owners, to be cut up into small farms. If 
the owners were unwilling to sell, the land might be taken 
compulsorily under the Land for Settlements Act. Adequate 
compensation has been given the owners, and, in general, 
they have shown little enmity to this process of subdividing 
large estates. By this method a million acres have been made 
available for settlement. Elaborate provisions were enacted 
for the occupation of government or Crown lands as well. As 
a result of these determined efforts to redistribute the land, 
the situation has been remarkably improved over that of 
forty years before; the average area of holdings in 1918 was 
less than six hundred acres. 



382 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

New Zealand has been noted for its pioneer labor legisla- 
tion. In fact, this was regarded, along with the closer settle- 
ment of the land, as the "twin measure" of relief, by which 
the country's condition could be ameliorated. The Indus- 
trial Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1895 is the basis for 
the labor legislation. By this measure workers were allowed 
to organize unions and to file their collective complaints with 
a Conciliation Board. The Board then investigated and 
made a recommendation. If this were rejected by either 
party, the case could be taken to the Arbitration Court, 
whose decision was law. The tendency of this system of set- 
tling labor disputes has been to make the New Zealand 
worker more willing and more intelligent. On the other 
hand, disputes of a questionable nature were often brought 
up, to the scandal of the system. In 1901 the law was 
amended so that it became possible to take matters directly 
to the Court. A further change was made in 1908, when 
Conciliation Councils consisting of nominees of the interested 
parties were instituted in place of the former Boards. Indus- 
trial arbitration has become well rooted in New Zealand, 
where it has worked for the general betterment of conditions. 

The most interesting of New Zealand's activities has been 
the very great part taken by the state in various fields often 
controlled by private individuals. The welfare of the people 
has been so constantly before the legislators that many 
activities have been entered by the state to protect the pub- 
lic. New Zealand has a state bank. Since 1905 houses for 
workmen have been erected by the Government in many of 
the industrial centers. New Zealand even deals in trading 
stamps. For many years there has been a Life Insurance 
Department of the New Zealand Government, and since 
1905 the state has been in the fire insurance business as 
well. In 1873 a Public Trust Office was organized, which, 
in 1918, administered over thirteen thousand estates. The 
Government owns the entire railway system, which is oper- 
ated at a profit of but three per cent. Any excess of in- 
come over this rate has been followed by reductions in pas- 
senger charges and freight rates. 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 383 

Many other interesting phases of state activity could be 
added. The Government owns and operates extensive coal 
mines. The Auckland oyster beds were taken over by the 
state to prevent their ruthless misuse. Sawmills, fish hatch- 
eries, assisted immigration, the importation of blooded 
stock, and maternity hospitals furnish other outlets for state 
activity. The Government even took over the town of 
Rotorua, because the expenditure of state money on baths 
and resorts was practically the only source of the com- 
munity's wealth. The general effect of state interference 
in the fields ordinarily under private enterprise has been to 
make prices more reasonable, and to improve the welfare of 
the people as a whole. Of late years, however, the tendency 
toward state action of this sort has not been so pronounced. 
The encouragement of private enterprise is now safe, since 
the Government has so firm a hold on the country's life. 

The recent years of New Zealand's history have been 
happily uneventful, save for the successive steps in state con- 
trol which have been briefly enumerated. In 1907 the name 
of the colony was changed to the Dominion of New Zealand, 
and ten years later the Governor became the Governor-Gen- 
eral. New Zealand has a real claim to the title " dominion," 
for it has outlying possessions as do sovereign states. A 
number of island groups have been attached to the Domin- 
ion. Notable among them are the Cook Islands, whose 
inhabitants speak a language closely related to that of the 
Maoris. After the Dominion's entry into the World War, 
New Zealand forces captured the German islands in the 
Samoan group, and they are now under its control. 1 

New Zealand, which has been called the "most purely 
British in blood of all the colonies," has a population of a 
million and a quarter. As one of the most distant of Britain's 
dominions, with a marked tendency toward advanced social 
legislation and a fresh outlook on imperial politics and or- 
ganization, the progress of this "Britain of the South "cannot 
fail to attract increasing attention and respect. 

1 For New Zealand's part in the World War, as well as recent political devel- 
opments, see pp. 451 £f., 457 ff. 



384 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

AUSTRALIAN SELF-GOVERNMENT 

As we turn to the consideration of the recent growth of 
Australia, it will be well briefly to recall the changes that 
took place in the sixty years between Captain Phillip's expe- 
dition to Sydney with a convoy of convict ships in 1788 and 
the discovery of gold sixty years later. 1 New South Wales 
served as the nucleus for growth. The island of Tasmania 
was burdened with convicts to its retardation until the col- 
ony demanded the privilege of a dignified and self-respecting 
existence. Even before the mid-century was reached, the 
colony of Victoria, centering at Melbourne, chafed under its 
connection with New South Wales. The farcical election of 
Lord Grey, the Colonial Secretary in England, as Victoria's 
representative in the Legislative Council at Sydney, was the 
spectacular manner in which the demand for separation was 
expressed. In the meantime settlements were started in 
what are now Queensland, South Australia, and Western 
Australia. 

Yet the growth of these colonies, later to form the states of 
the Australian Commonwealth, was unequal. The excellent 
grazing-lands and later the discovery of gold in New South 
Wales and in Victoria meant rapid growth. Western Aus- 
tralia, which had been occupied as early as 1829, did not 
prosper, owing to the lack of cheap labor and the tendency 
toward the ownership of very large estates. In 1849 the in- 
habitants had requested the use of convicts at a time when 
the other colonies on the continent were ridding themselves 
of the evils of transportation. South Australia had been 
started a few years after Western Australia on the program of 
the Wakefield system. Here growth was rapid, and, after 
some initial failures, the district about Adelaide grew into a 
prosperous colony under the guidance of Sir George Grey. 
Queensland remained a part of New South W'ales after the 
other colonies became distinct. 

The Act for the Government of New South Wales and Van 
Diemen's Land, passed in 1842, introduced a measure of self- 

1 See chapter xv. 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 385 

government; the next step was the passage of the Australian 
Colonies Government Act in 1850. This statute made Port 
Phillip a separate colony under the name of Victoria. A Leg- 
islative Council, two thirds elective, was granted Victoria, 
and the same machinery for local government was set up in 
Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania, as well 
as in the mother colony. The most remarkable provisions of 
this statute, with which the new epoch in Australia was in- 
augurated, were those enabling the colonies to fix the fran- 
chise according to their wishes, to impose customs duties as 
seemed fit, and to make such constitutions as they should de- 
sire. With these wide privileges came the era in which Aus- 
tralia has worked out its own needs and has met the various 
crises that have arisen as seemed wise to those who knew the 
situation from first-hand knowledge. 

New South Wales took the first step toward making a new 
constitution. In 1852 a committee was appointed which 
drew up a constitution based on the one in operation in Eng- 
land. There were two houses in the legislature. The upper 
house, or Legislative Council, was composed of nominees of 
the Governor, acting on the advice of his ministers, and the 
lower house, or Legislative Assembly, was entirely elected by 
the vote of those who had a slight property qualification. 
The Cabinet was made responsible to the lower house. Par- 
liaments were not to last longer than five years and to be 
summoned annually. 

The colony of Victoria appointed its committee in 1853. 
Its constitution, proclaimed in 1855, differed from that of 
New South Wales in having the upper house elected. Its 
members were chosen for ten years, and the choice was re- 
stricted to those owning property of the value of £5000 or 
with an annual income of one tenth that sum. The franchise 
was based on a higher property qualification than that in 
New South Wales — £1000 instead of £100 as in the older 
colony. The year 1855 also brought into being the constitu- 
tions of South Australia and Tasmania. South Australia had 
the most democratic government of the four. There the fran- 
chise was granted to those over thirty who had been residents 



386 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

for three years, and the life of its parliaments was limited to 
three years. Queensland, formed into a separate colony in 
1859, was provided with a government similar to that of New 
South Wales, where the members of the upper house were 
appointed. 

Western Australia was very slow in attaining a position 
that can be compared to that of the other colonies on the con- 
tinent. The introduction of the convict system there, just at 
the time the other colonies were discarding it, led to the pro- 
posal of a boycott against the west coast. Western Australia 
finally abolished the transportation system in 1868, but it was 
not until 1890 that self-government was granted and this col- 
ony put on an equality with its neighbors. 

THE EXPLORATION OF THE INTERIOR^ 

Thus far we have been concerned with the story of the 
coastal districts, where a few important communities had 
served as centers for later self-governing colonies. The gen- 
eral outline of the continent was determined early in the 
century. The work of Flinders, Bass, George Grey, and 
many others revealed the character of the Australian coast. 
But the interior was not well known, even by the middle 
of the nineteenth century. Blaxland opened the Bathurst 
Plains to settlement as early as 1813, but otherwise interior 
exploration was largely confined to the great river system 
that reaches the sea near Adelaide. 

The exploration of the vast interior was a later and distinct 
task, involving the work of a large number of daring explor- 
ers. It was no slight achievement to make known the inte- 
rior of the continent, for Australia is about the size of the 
United States. From Adelaide it is over one thousand miles 
to the Gulf of Carpentaria, while Brisbane is twice as far from 
Perth. The object before the men who figured in the work 
of exploration during the forties and fifties was to ascertain 
the nature of the central part of the continent and to discover 
practicable routes across the trackless wilderness, northward 
from Adelaide and Victoria and westward from Brisbane and 
Sydney. 1 

1 See the map of Australia on p. 237. 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 387 

Edward John Eyre did much to spur others on to the great 
work. Although he had visited Lake Torrens in 1839, he was 
not satisfied with this exploit; it was his wish to raise in the 
center of the continent a Union Jack which had been worked 
for him by his female admirers at Adelaide. The attempt 
was made in 1840, but salty swamps barred his way and he 
turned to the west, reaching Albany twelve months after 
leaving Adelaide, having endured almost unexampled priva- 
tions. The explorer, Captain Charles Sturt, who had inves- 
tigated the Murray River basin in earlier days, also sought the 
center of the continent by starting from South Australia. In 
1844 his well-organized expedition traveled northward. Al- 
though he avoided the salt swamps that obstructed Eyre, he 
was turned back before reaching the center of the continent, 
after wandering for more than thirteen months in the inter- 
minable "'gloomy and burning deserts." 

During this same period expeditions were sent out from 
New South Wales to the northwest. Sir Thomas Mitchell, the 
Surveyor-General of the colony, revealed in 1844 the charac- 
ter of the country back of the Darling Downs. A Prussian, 
Ludwig Leichhardt by name, came to Australia in 1842, 
deeply interested in scientific work. He brought introduc- 
tions to Sir Thomas Mitchell, and the latter agreed to take 
Leichhardt with him on a projected journey to the northern 
gulf. As a delay occurred, the eager German scientist organ- 
ized an expedition of his own in 1844. Success crowned his 
efforts, for he was able to traverse the country to the south of 
the Gulf of Carpentaria and to reach a British naval station 
on Van Diemen's Gulf. On his return to Brisbane he was en- 
thusiastically received. A second expedition was conducted 
in 1845, and a third was fitted out in 1848 by which Leich- 
hardt hoped to cross the continent through its center from 
west to east. In this expedition, however, he perished, for 
nothing was ever heard of the ill-fated explorer after he pene- 
trated the central regions. 

At the end of the fifties there was a proposal to connect 
Australia with England by cable. The South Australians 
were desirous that its southern terminus as it traversed the 



388 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

continent should be Adelaide. Accordingly South Australia 
offered two thousand pounds to the first man who would 
cross the continent from south to north. The explorer who 
took up the gage was John McDouall Stuart. He had been 
in Sturt's expedition and had proved his ability and courage 
in later journeys. In 1860 he reached the center of the con- 
tinent by a route leading directly north from Adelaide. He 
found fertile land north of the Torrens basin, but he was com- 
pelled to turn back on account of illness, lack of provisions, 
and attacks by the aborigines. A second attempt in 1861 
was fruitless, but in a third trial in 1862 he was successful. 
Stuart came out upon the north coast of Australia not far to 
the east of Port Darwin. It was a very important expedition, 
for it made possible an overland telegraph line and gave South 
Australia a claim to the Northern Territory. 

There were many other workmen interested in this roman- 
tic, if trying, labor of discovery, and much remained to be 
done after Stuart's transcontinental journey. Western Aus- 
tralia and the country to the west of the Torrens basin were 
made known in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 
The great gold-fields at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie — now 
producing more than the mines of Victoria — were found in 
1892 and 1893. By the efforts of these explorers and others, 
whose names cannot be included in this short treatment, the 
country became known. Tracks were later to become roads, 
and even railroads were traced through much that was barren 
waste. Yet many promising districts were found and links 
formed that bound the great colonies on their interior lines. 

The disposal of the Northern Territory was in question for 
some time. The home Government did not wish to take the 
responsibility for a new colony in that tropical region. 
Queensland would have liked to control it, but in the sixties 
it was as yet too weak to bear the burden of its government. 
Squatters were coming into the region, and it was necessary 
that order be preserved. On the return of McDouall Stuart 
in 1862, South Australians learned that the country was valu- 
able. Stuart was convinced also that a telegraph line could 
be laid along his route. Thereupon South Australia asked 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 389 

for and received control of the Northern Territory in 1863. 
In 1869 Darwin, or Palmerston as it was then called, was 
surveyed. In 1872 the overland telegraph line from Darwin, 
where it connected with the English cable, was constructed to 
Adelaide. It was a tremeDdous task, for the telegraph line 
was 1973 miles long. After the federation of the Australian 
colonies the Northern Territory became a dependency of the 
Commonwealth. Another great link binding the Australian 
colonies more closely together was the construction of an 
overland telegraph line along Eyre's route from Adelaide to 
Albany in 1877. 

THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 

After the constitutions were formed in 1855, and during 
the period when great material advances were being made 
and the continent was becoming known, the various colonies 
were working out their problems, each in its own way. With 
the federation of the colonies into a Commonwealth in 1900, 
the work went on as a unit. And yet, in the period from 1855 
to 1900, the attitude of the different colonies to their common 
difficulties was not dissimilar. There was much interchange 
of population, which was greatly assisted by the mining dis- 
coveries made in the various colonies at different times. Their 
very isolation from the rest of the world tended to bring them 
together in spirit before federation was accomplished in fact. 

In the working-out of the new governments the greatest 
difficulty was found in the relations of the lower to the upper 
houses. As already indicated, the members of the upper 
house were appointed in New South Wales and Queensland. 
As there was no limit to the membership of the upper houses 
of these colonies, the addition of members at the dictation 
of the ministry could override opposition. 

The situation was not solved so easily in the colonies where 
the Legislative Council was elected. The most memorable 
illustration of difficulty occurred in Victoria, where the coun- 
cil members were chosen for a ten-year term on a high prop- 
erty qualification. The issue was the question of protec- 
tion, which the McCulloch Ministry advocated in 1865, 



390 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

largely as the result of the agitation of David Syme and 
Graham Berry. Failing to obtain the assent of the Legis- 
lative Council, McCulloch added the tariff legislation as a 
" rider" to the annual budget. The Council proceeded to 
reject the budget. Finally, after the tariff had gone to the 
Council for the fourth time, a spirit of concession brought 
agreement. 

Another crisis came in the same colony in 1877 over the 
payment of members of Parliament. Graham Berry in- 
cluded the measure in the annual budget, which was rejected 
by the Council. Thereupon the Prime Minister determined 
to bring the Council to terms by dismissing important public 
servants from office on the ground of reduced funds. January 
8, 1878, known as "Black Wednesday," was the day when 
this was done. So upset was the financial situation that the 
Council was forced to come to terms. Similar difficulties had 
occurred elsewhere and led the framers of the Commonwealth 
constitution to take care that no such deadlock could occur in 
the federal legislature. A solution has been provided by 
making the Councils more amenable to popular influences 
and " somewhat more representative of human beings than of 
sheep." 

One cause for the bitter conflicts between the two houses 
has been the radical legislative tendencies of the Assemblies, 
which the more conservative have tried to block through the 
control of the Councils. In social and industrial matters, 
the Australian colonies developed in a pronouncedly ad- 
vanced way along a course similar to that of their near neigh- 
bor, New Zealand. As we have already considered in some 
detail New Zealand growth in this respect, it is unnecessary 
to go into full particulars regarding Australia. 

Woman suffrage appeared in Australia shortly after its in- 
troduction into New Zealand in 1893. South Australia fol- 
lowed in 1894, and by 1909 it was the law in all the colonies. 
Since 1902 federal elections have been by adult suffrage. 
Voting by ballot was adopted by Victoria shortly after the 
new constitution went into effect in 1855. The other colo- 
nies soon followed, and it was not long before it spread across 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 391 

the seas. England adopted the " Victorian" ballot in 1872; 
in the United States the " Australian " ballot, as it is generally 
called, was used for the first time in 1889 in the State of 
Massachusetts. Compulsory preferential voting is now in 
force in several of the states of the Commonwealth. 1 

The distribution of the land has been the subject of much 
legislation. Large estates were created in Australia as well 
as in New Zealand. Sheep-raising tended to aggravate the 
evil. Much ill feeling was aroused when the leased land of 
the sheep-raisers was allowed to be taken by farmers if they 
would " improve" their holdings. Large tracts were broken 
up in later years by methods of compulsory sale — save in 
South Australia and Western Australia — by which " closer 
settlement" became possible. New Zealand's treatment of 
the situation is typical of that of Australia as well. Coopera- 
tive communities, village settlements, and labor colonies are 
provided for by several of the states. 

Labor legislation has been of an advanced character, par- 
allel to that already noted in New Zealand. In the same 
year that New Zealand introduced its arbitration system, 
similar legislation was enacted in New South Wales, Victoria, 
and South Australia, and it has since been extended to the 
whole Commonwealth. 

A characteristic development has been the attitude to- 
ward immigration. In a new country capable of sustaining 
a much greater population than it yet possesses, this always 
takes a place of great prominence. Immigration has been 
assisted from the earliest days. On the other hand, care has 
been taken to keep out those regarded as undesirable. We 
have already seen the attitude taken toward the introduc- 
tion of convicts. Likewise, in no uncertain tones, Australia 
has decided against the advent of colored races, especially 
the Chinese and Japanese. "Australia for the Australians," 
that is, a "white Australia," has been the slogan. 

In the days when gold was drawing the people in such 

1 The novelty of the procedure consists in the requirement that the voter in- 
dicate his preference for every candidate listed. If a majority is not reached, 
the lowest candidate is omitted and the second choices are considered until a 
majority is reached. 



392 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

numbers to the mines, the influx of Chinese laborers aroused 
anxiety. Victoria imposed a ten-pound poll tax in 1855 and 
forbade a ship to carry more than one Chinese passenger for 
every ten tons of the vessel's tonnage. By 1888 feeling 
against the Chinese had become so strong that it was deter- 
mined to exclude Orientals altogether. At present a high 
poll tax is in force, and the law for the prohibition of unde- 
sirable immigrants is so framed as automatically to exclude 
those who are not Europeans or white Americans. Persons 
may be kept out who fail to pass a dictation test, that is, who 
cannot write out fifty words of a language dictated by the 
immigration inspector. As the language dictated is a Euro- 
pean one, it is easy to bar Orientals and any others that are 
not wanted. The dictation test is not usually imposed on 
those of European race; its purpose is the exclusion of the 
non-desirables. So effective has been the policy of Australia 
toward the colored races that there were but eleven non- 
Europeans in Australia to every thousand of the population, 
according to the census of 1911. 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 

The discussion of Australian growth since 1855 has neces- 
sitated reference to the Commonwealth. The union of the 
seven communities into one government in 1900 is the most 
notable event in the expansion of the white man's power on 
the continent. 

The Act of 1850 had originally made provision for a fed- 
eration of the colonies, if it should seem wise, but it was 
only with the lapse of time that the feeling for union became 
strong. The growing tension over colonial possessions that 
appeared about 1885 led to much apprehension in Australia. 
The occupation of northern New Guinea by Germany was a 
cause for intense dissatisfaction in the southern continent, 
where the desire to control the adjoining Pacific islands was 
already strong. 

In 1880 a conference of representatives of all of the self- 
governing colonies was held at Melbourne; another meeting 
took place three years later. Henry Parkes, the New South 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 393 

Wales statesman — the greatest promoter of the federation 
movement — had suggested the formation of a Federal 
Council. The scheme was adopted in 1883 and authorized 
by Act of the Imperial Parliament in 1885. This Council 
possessed very limited powers, and neither New South Wales 
nor New Zealand saw fit to authorize the sending of represent- 
atives. Nevertheless, it held meetings every two years, and, 
although there was no coercive power back of its enactments, 
the Federal Council undoubtedly helped to call attention to 
the need for unified action. 

In 1889 Henry Parkes reopened the question of federation 
by urging a conference of ministers of the various colonies 
to prepare a constitution. The Conference met in 1890, and 
out of its work grew the Federal Convention at Sydney 
in 1891. This organization, composed of representatives 
chosen by the parliaments of each of the colonies, including 
New Zealand, prepared a draft constitution which became 
the basis of the later federal organization. If accepted by 
three of the colonies, it was to be passed by the Imperial Par- 
liament and to become law. Unfortunately, New South 
Wales again balked, with the result that action by the other 
colonies was deemed useless. Parkes, who died in 1895, 
seemed to have failed. On the contrary, popular feeling be- 
gan to express itself in the nineties for the federation that 
Parkes had so much desired. Leagues were formed, in 
which the idea was fostered that a convention elected by the 
people should be chosen to make a constitution that should 
be submitted directly to the people for their approval. As 
the end of the century approached the movement became 
more and more powerful. In 1897-98 members were chosen 
by the people, except in the case of Western Australia, for a 
convention that was to draft a new constitution. 

During 1897 and 1898 three sessions were held. Al- 
though the draft of 1891 was made the basis of discussion, 
many stumbling-blocks were encountered. The large states 
feared the power granted to the weaker members in a senate 
where each state was on an equality, and were unwilling to 
contribute in customs receipts what seemed more than their 



394 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

share to the Commonwealth expenses. On the latter ques- 
tion a compromise was reached in the third session by the 
agreement that uniform customs were not to be inaugurated 
until two years after the constitution was in effect, and even 
then a proportional amount was to be returned to each state 
above the amount needed for Commonwealth expenses. The 
common expenditure from customs duties was also limited. 
By these measures the Federation Bill was made acceptable 
to the Convention in 1898. 

It was then necessary to submit the document to the people. 
In Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania it received the 
required vote. But Queensland and Western Australia did 
not vote, and New South Wales did not give the constitution 
the required minimum number of votes needed for its ac- 
ceptance. It seemed useless to go further unless some means 
could be found to bring the lagging states into line. A con- 
ference of Premiers, this time including Queensland, was 
held at Melbourne in 1899, when changes were made in the 
constitution which it was hoped would lead to its acceptance. 
The customs compromise was to continue but ten years, and 
New South Wales was placated by an understanding that the 
federal capital should be located somewhere in the mother 
colony, not less than one hundred miles from Sydney. A 
second referendum was then taken and all the colonies gave 
the needed majorities. Western Australia abstained from 
a referendum at the time, but joined the Commonwealth 
after the constitution was authorized by the Imperial Par- 
liament. 

After full consideration by the home Government and after 
some slight changes regarding the right of appeal to the 
Privy Council, the Constitution Bill received the royal assent 
in July, 1900. The Commonwealth of Australia came into 
being on January 1, 1901. When Joseph Chamberlain in- 
troduced the bill he spoke of the measure as "marking an era 
in the history of Australia and a great and important step 
toward the organization of the British Empire." It is re- 
markable that these states should have organized into one 
group, when we recall that no foreign war drew them to- 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 395 

gether. Nor was there any undue interference with their 
local privileges, such as had fostered the union of the Amer- 
ican colonies in the eighteenth century. No menace of pos- 
sible internal strife need have caused them worry. Nor was 
it owing to pressure from imperial sources that the federa- 
tion feeling produced concrete action. 

The Commonwealth Constitution was altogether of local 
construction, elaborated by Australian statesmen who were 
guided by British traditions, but who independently gath- 
ered suggestions from various sources. The resemblance be- 
tween the Constitution of the United States and that of Aus- 
tralia is striking. In the Commonwealth Government the 
legislative bodies are two in number, a Senate and a House of 
Representatives. As in the United States, the Senate is com- 
posed of equal numbers of senators from each state — six in 
Australia — who are chosen by direct election. The lower 
house is representative of population as in the United States. 1 
There is, however, one great difference between the Austra- 
lian and American Constitutions, in that the Australian 
combines representative with responsible government. The 
Executive consists of a Cabinet whose members belong to the 
House of Representatives and who are subject to question 
and control by that assembly. 

In the working of the Australian Constitution there is no 
danger of a deadlock between the executive and the legisla- 
tive departments, as in the United States. Experience had 
taught the possibility of a deadlock between the upper and 
the lower house. To prevent a situation such as occurred in 
Victoria in 1865 and again in 1877, there is a provision by 
which a majority vote in a joint meeting of the two houses 
shall decide on a measure thrice rejected by the Senate. The 
interpretation of the Constitution and the settling of vexed 
questions between states and on federal matters was given 
to the High Court, corresponding to the United States Su- 
preme Court. 

1 The relative size of the states is indicated by their proportion of members 
in the House of Representatives. As a result of the census of 1911 New South 
Wales obtained 27 members, Victoria 21, Queensland 10, South Australia 7, 
Western Australia 5, and Tasmania 5. 



396 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The federal capital was not to be less than one hundred 
miles from Sydney. It was only after several years of wordy 
discussion that nine hundred square miles of territory south- 
west of Sydney in the Canberra district were ceded to the 
Federal Government. The initial ceremony for preparing 
the district as the seat of the central Government took 
place in 1913, at which time " Canberra" was decided on as 
the name of the capital city. 

Since 1900 the states have been working out their common 
problems by means of the familiar party system. At the be- 
ginning of the Commonwealth there were three groups, the 
protectionists led by Barton, the free-traders under G. H. 
Reid, and the labor representatives led by J. C. Watson. 
From the first the Labor Party held the balance of power, as 
neither of the others was able to stay in office without its as- 
sistance. In 1904 a labor government took the lead for a 
short time. By 1908 it had attained great strength, and since 
that time, first under the lead of Andrew Fisher and later of 
William Morris Hughes, it has controlled Australian affairs 
during the period before and including the time of the World 
War. 

The Commonwealth has developed notably from the days 
of its founding, one hundred years ago. A great continent as 
large as the United States has been brought under one gov- 
ernment. Unlimited resources have been revealed in this 
English-speaking dominion in the southern hemisphere. The 
particular interest it has for the student of the British Empire 
is the opportunity Australia affords for the development of 
British institutions under the guidance of men willing to try 
the untried in the field of land, labor, and industrial legisla- 
tion. At the opening of the World War the population of 
Australia was over five million. Of this total four fifths were 
natives of the continent, and but four per cent were of other 
than British stock. There were but twenty thousand aborig- 
ines at that time in addition to the fifty thousand non- 
Europeans. It is veritably a white man's country. 



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ISLANDS 
" (Fr.) 



ISLAND^ - 

(N.Z.) 



PITCAIRN I. 
(Br.) 



E 



A 



N 



^ 



SOUTHWESTERN PACIFIC 

LEGEND 

Sphere of influence of British Colonial Office = = = = = 

Australia x x x x x x x 

New Zealand 111 
(Man.) Mandate (formerly German) 




BRITISH ISLES 
Comparative Area 



from Greenwich 160 



140° 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 397 

THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 

Besides Australia and New Zealand the British Empire 
includes numerous island groups in the southern Pacific. As 
they bear a rather intimate relationship to the dominions 
we have been studying, it is necessary to bring them into our 
view before leaving the southern hemisphere for the study of 
Canada and Newfoundland. 

One of the most important groups from the British point of 
view is the Fiji Islands, located about one thousand miles 
directly north of New Zealand. Early in the nineteenth 
century these islands were the haunts of traders and runa- 
ways. The London Missionary Society had its representa- 
tives in the Fiji Islands and other neighboring groups as well 
as in South Africa. One method of proselyting was to take 
the native boys of the island on trips, to learn their language 
and in turn to teach them English. Sometimes they were 
even taken to school to Auckland or elsewhere for a time. 
Then the converted natives would be returned to spread the 
new religion and civilization they had acquired. The famous 
missionary bishops, Selwyn and Patteson, employed this 
method. 

This proceeding was soon parodied by unscrupulous men 
interested in cheap labor for the Queensland sugar and cotton 
plantations. These men-merchants were harsh and the 
natives not unnaturally resisted measures that led to prac- 
tical slavery. It was to be expected, also, that reprisals on 
the part of the natives would result from this kidnapping of 
dark-skinned laborers, or "blackbirding" as it was called. 
The natives, in their reprisals, could not or would not dis- 
criminate between missionary philanthropists and the steal- 
ers of men. The murder of Bishop Patteson by the natives 
of the Santa Cruz group in 1871 revealed a situation that 
needed attention. Great Britain took action to restrain the 
labor trade and to keep order among the natives by super- 
vising these islands through a High Commissioner for the 
Western Pacific. His residence was placed in the Fiji Is- 
lands, which were annexed to the Empire in 1874. 



398 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

After 1874 the international rivalry of Great Britain, 
France, and Germany led to further additions to the British 
Empire, as well as to those of its rivals. New Zealand and 
Australia particularly resented the intrusion of non-British 
influences in the southern Pacific. The French, nevertheless, 
became interested in the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, 
which lie between Fiji and Queensland. Their proximity to 
the Australian mainland was a nuisance after the French had 
made New Caledonia a penal colony, since criminals in escap- 
ing found Queensland a convenient home. Finally an agree- 
ment was reached between France and Great Britain; the 
French control of New Caledonia was recognized, but it was 
not to be the prison-house of criminals. The New Hebrides 
have been jointly supervised by the commissioners of the two 
countries, an arrangement that has caused much dissatisfac- 
tion. 

Germany awoke in the eighties to the need for a colonial 
empire. In the southern Pacific it was interested in New 
Guinea, in the Melanesian islands to the north, and in 
Samoa, northeast of Fiji. Queensland, however, coveted 
New Guinea, and annexed it on its own responsibility in 
1883. Notwithstanding, the home Government in London 
hesitated on the question of the ownership of the island until 
Germany had taken possession of the northeastern part of it 
in 1884. The exasperated Australians were able to bring 
about the "protection" of southeastern New Guinea only 
after Germany had taken what it wanted. In 1889 the ad- 
ministration of the British part of New Guinea, known as 
Papua, was entrusted to Queensland. After the Common- 
wealth came into being, Papua became a subject-territory of 
the new Australian federation by virtue of the Papua Act 
of 1905. 

Other groups besides the Fiji Islands became British in 
these years, in order to keep control of the lines binding the 
Empire together. When the Canadian Pacific Railway was 
completed in 1885, mail service was established between 
Canada and Australasia, and many islands grew in impor- 
tance thereby. In this connection Fanning Island should be 



MODERN AUSTRALASIA 399 

mentioned. It lies in a central position in the southern Pa- 
cific, and is a landing-place of the all-British cable from 
Australasia to Vancouver. In 1889 the Cook Islands were an- 
nexed to New Zealand, and that Dominion also received the 
administration of several other groups, which are compara- 
tively unimportant. 

The Tonga or Friendly Islands became a protectorate of 
Great Britain in 1900. During the nineties Great Britain 
took possession of the Solomon, Gilbert, and Ellice Islands. 
The British Solomon Islands (to be distinguished from the 
German Solomon Islands administered under a mandate by 
the Commonwealth of Australia) are a protectorate. The 
Gilbert and Ellice groups, proclaimed protectorates in 1892, 
were annexed in 1915. The jurisdiction of the High Commis- 
sioner of the Western Pacific extends over these islands as 
well as other groups not within the jurisdiction of a civil- 
ized power. The High Commissioner, who is stationed in the 
Fiji Islands, rules that group, not by virtue of his appoint- 
ment as High Commissioner, but as Governor. 

Australia and New Zealand have persistently expressed 
the opinion that Great Britain should adopt a "forward pol- 
icy" in the organization of the Pacific, by allowing these two 
great self-governing Dominions to become stewards of the 
Empire for the numerous scattered groups in the South Pa- 
cific. A step in that direction was taken when the German 
islands were placed under these Dominions as mandatories. 
The present distribution of the islands we have been studying 
among New Zealand, Australia, and the Colonial Office in 
London does not seem the most rational arrangement. The 
abolition of the High Commission of the Western Pacific and 
the transfer of the various groups to the near-by Australasian 
Dominions would simplify a complicated situation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Little need be added to the Bibliographical Note for chapter xv. Both 
New Zealand and Australia publish elaborate Official Year Books (the 
former at Wellington and the latter at Melbourne) . A good treatment of 
recent New Zealand history and conditions is that of G. H. Scholefield, 
New Zealand in Evolution, Industrial, Economic, Political (London, 1916). 



400 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

In addition to J. D. Rogers's Australasia, the Pacific islands are considered 
in A. Wyatt Tilby's Australasia, by C. Brunsdon Fletcher in The Problem 
of the Pacific (London, 1919), and in G. H. Scholefield's The Pacific, Its Past 
and Future (London, 1919). In the King's College Lectures on Colonial 
Problems a former High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, Sir Everard 
imThurn, has a lecture on "Native Land and Labour in the South Seas." 
For the Constitution and a treatment of its political characteristics see 
Egerton's Federations and Unions in the British Empire. Missionary 
enterprise in the South Seas has called many remarkable workers. Among 
the more prominent missionaries may be mentioned Bishop Selwyn, 
Bishop John C. Patteson, James Calvert, William Ellis, John Williams, 
John G. Paton, and James Chalmers. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA — CANADA AND 
NEWFOUNDLAND 

A survey of recent Canadian growth has been reserved to 
the last for several reasons. Canada was the first of the do- 
minions to attain self-government. Born on July 1, 1867, 
it has served as a model and an inspiration to the younger 
members of the Empire. As the most mature of the sister 
Dominions Canada is both a record and a prophecy. It holds 
a strategic position in another way as well, for its geographi- 
cal location makes Canada an important link by which the 
Pacific interests of Great Britain are connected with the 
home country. In addition, the Dominion has a common 
and unfortified boundary four thousand miles long with the 
greatest English-speaking nation outside the Empire. The 
reciprocal influences operating between Canada and the Em- 
pire on the one side and the United States on the other are 
fateful for the future of the human race and the place of Eng- 
lish-speaking ideals in its uplift and control. 

CANADIAN CONFEDERATION 

The British North America Act went into effect July 1, 
1867. It provided for a federal union or partnership of four 
provinces, Upper and Lower Canada — renamed Ontario 
and Quebec respectively — and Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
wick. The Act was so framed as to make possible the later 
admission of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, British 
Columbia, " Prince Rupert's Land and the North-Western 
Territory," all of which save Newfoundland have since en- 
tered the Dominion. The Governor-General, appointed by 
the imperial authorities, represents the King in Canada and 
guards imperial interests. The assent of the Governor-Gen- 
eral is necessary to make valid the laws promulgated and 
passed by the Dominion Senate and House of Commons. 

The Senate was intended to represent the provinces, and 



402 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

was formed so as to comprise equal numbers from each of the 
three divisions, Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Prov- 
inces. As the senators are appointed by the Government, 
the Senate has not exercised the power that was expected 
of it; it serves in no serious way to impede the work of 
the House of Commons. l The greater power rests with the 
lower house, in which all money bills must originate. The 
Executive, nominally the Governor-General representing the 
King, consists of a Premier and his Cabinet; it is based on 
the English model and is responsible to the House of Com- 
mons. If an adverse vote occurs on a government measure, 
the Premier must resign, as in the procedure of the House 
of Commons in England. "Thus with a Governor-General, 
who is much more important socially than politically, and a 
Senate which does what it is told, Canada is perhaps the most 
democratic country in the world." 2 

The Dominion is a federal union, differing from the 
United States to the south in that the provinces are granted 
certain specified powers and all others are vested in the Do- 
minion Parliament. Twenty-eight classes of subjects are 
listed in the Act as within the scope of the central Gov- 
ernment besides any others not assigned exclusively to the 
legislatures of the provinces. In general, the division made 
is between matters of national and of local interest. The 
provincial governments have control of local self-govern- 
ment, known as the Municipal System, and have charge of 
other local matters, including taxation and education. The 
matter of education is probably the chief prerogative left to 
the provinces. The Act provides that rights held at the 
time of the union by denominational schools within a prov- 
ince cannot be affected by later legislation. 

In each of the provinces there is a Lieutenant-General, ap- 
pointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Cabi- 
net. The Legislative Assemblies of the various provinces 
are chosen by the people and the provincial Executive Coun- 

1 There has been occasional difficulty when the majority of the Senate has 
been opposed to the Government, illustrated by the attitude of the Liberal 
Senate in the years immediately following Laurier's downfall. 

2 The British Empire — Past, Present, and Future, p. 295. 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 403 

cils are responsible to the Assemblies in the same way that 
the Dominion Cabinet is controlled by the House at Ottawa. 
At present, there is, in addition to the Legislative Assembly, 
a Legislative Council, or upper house, in Nova Scotia and 
Quebec. 

THE UNIFICATION OF THE DOMINION 

With its inauguration the new Dominion faced many prob- 
lems of a serious character. Even the four provinces that 
were charter members were widely separated in their interests 
as a result of inadequate means of communication. In fact, 
the Act provided for the building "with all practicable 
speed" of the Intercolonial Railway to connect the St. Law- 
rence with Halifax. When British Columbia joined the con- 
federation a few years later, a similar condition was imposed 
"to consolidate the union" of this far-distant province. In 
1867 British Columbia was totally isolated, as the vast 
stretches of the prairie provinces were at that time largely un- 
occupied. The Hudson's Bay Company controlled this terri- 
tory, in which the only real settlement was Lord Selkirk's 
colony on the Red River. In addition, Dominion agricul- 
ture and trade were suffering from a discontinuance of the 
reciprocity arrangements with the United States. Manufac- 
turing had as yet assumed little importance. The Dominion 
was inaugurated at a particularly unfortunate time, so far as 
its relations with the United States were concerned. The 
recent Civil War in the United States had embittered the 
relations between England and the Republic. Added to 
these difficulties was the task of bringing about a good under- 
standing and a working agreement between the French of the 
province of Quebec and the English-speaking peoples of the 
other provinces. 

The first Parliament of the Dominion met in the new 
buildings in Ottawa in the autumn of 1867. With a few 
exceptions, the men prominent in bringing the confedera- 
tion into being were in the first Government. The Prime 
Minister was John A. Macdonald, and his Cabinet included 
such well-known men as George E. Cartier, S. L. Tilley, and 



404 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

A. T. Gait. George Brown, the leader of the "Clear Grits" 
of pre-Confederation days, had united with Macdonald and 
Cartier to effect the union, but he returned in 1867 to a ve- 
hement opposition of his recent colleagues. Macdonald and 
Cartier formed an Anglo-French Conservative Party, which 
was able to control the growth of the Dominion during its 
critical years; with the exception of the five years from 1873 
to 1878, when the Liberals were in office, the Conservatives 
held the reins of power from the inauguration of the Domin- 
ion until 1896. 

The policy of the Conservative Party was plainly outlined 
by the evident needs of the Dominion. The sectionalism of 
former days needed an antidote in the form of a strong cen- 
tral Government. This, as well as a forceful emphasis on 
the imperial connection with Great Britain, was dictated by 
the strained relations that had existed with the United 
States since the beginning of the sixties, especially as the Re- 
public to the south had just come out of the Civil War and 
would be a formidable enemy should trouble arise. Industry, 
commerce, and especially the settlement of sparsely peopled 
areas were subjects in great want of attention. Probably 
the most crying need was the binding together of the prov- 
inces by telegraphs, railways, and canals. Advocate of all 
these policies, and "Father" — if any one can be called such 
— of the Dominion was John A. Macdonald, a remarkably 
sagacious politician, untiring, courageous, and enthusiastic 
in his support of imperial interests. He, more than any 
other, should have credit for the unification and the grow- 
ing prosperity that came to Canada in the last third of the 
nineteenth century. 

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were in the Confedera- 
tion at the time it was organized. At the outset, the former 
did not prove to be heartily in favor of the union. Halifax felt 
that its interests were not forwarded by a combination with 
Canada. Nova Scotians found it easier to think of centering 
their attention "in London under the dominion of John Bull 
than in Ottawa under the dominion of Jack Frost." Joseph 
Howe, the most prominent man of the province, even went 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 405 

to London to urge the interests of Nova Scotia. It was only 
after protracted negotiations with the Dominion Govern- 
ment, by which better financial terms were granted to Nova 
Scotia, that Howe became reconciled to joining the Dominion 
Ministry in 1869. 

Prince Edward Island had held aloof in 1867. Neverthe- 
less, it was inevitable that it should follow its neighbors, as 
in the case of Rhode Island when the United States was or- 
ganized under the Constitution, for there was more to be 
gained by Prince Edward Island if it joined the Dominion 
than if it remained separated from its sister provinces. 
Very favorable financial arrangements were offered Prince 
Edward Island, and in 1873 it became a province of the 
Dominion. 

One of the essentials in order to bring about real unity be- 
tween the Maritime Provinces and the two Canadas was rail- 
way communication. As we have noted, the Act of Union 
provided for a railway from Halifax to the St. Lawrence. A 
bill guaranteeing £3,000,000 for the Intercolonial Railway 
was passed by the Imperial Parliament at the time when the 
British North America Act received its official form. This 
was on the demand of New Brunswick. The route, however, 
proved a difficult one to select. The State of Maine jutted 
so far up toward the St. Lawrence that the natural route be- 
tween the Maritime Provinces and the upper St. Lawrence 
could not be followed. As a route too near the American 
boundary was not regarded as wise, the course finally selected 
by Mr. (later, Sir) Sandford Fleming, the government en- 
gineer, reached the St. Lawrence by skirting the Bay of 
Chaleurs. In 1876 this much-needed railway was opened. 

Meanwhile, on the western coast of the continent British 
settlers were forming a colony that was to join the Dominion 
and to be linked to its sister provinces by another important 
railway. The Hudson's Bay Company had leased the terri- 
tory north of the United States boundary and on the Pacific 
coast for the purposes of trade. It included the mainland of 
British Columbia as well as the island of Vancouver. There 
had been little settlement on the mainland until the discov- 



406 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ery of gold in the bed of the Fraser River in 1856. In 1858 
British Columbia was made a Crown Colony. Two years 
earlier Vancouver Island received a legislature. For a time 
the two districts remained separate, since their interests did 
not coincide (one was a trading city, the other a mining dis- 
trict). As the two colonies grew, they became more con- 
vinced that union was desirable; it was in 1866 that Van- 
couver Island and British Columbia united under the name 
of British Columbia with Vancouver, on Vancouver Island, 
as the capital. 

A step of greater importance was taken when the unified 
Pacific colonies determined to join the confederation which 
had been formed far to the east. It is a credit to the far- 
seeing vision of Canadian statesmen and the colonists on the 
Pacific coast that this apparently strange proceeding should 
have seemed feasible. But Sir John A Macdonald's concep- 
tions could easily span a continent. After considerable de- 
lay in British Columbia, partly the result of the attitude of 
the Governor, resolutions were passed by the legislature in 
favor of union with the Canadian provinces. After dele- 
gates from the Pacific coast had arranged terms at Ottawa 
with the Dominion Government, British Columbia became 
part of Canada in 1871. The chief stipulation made by the 
new province and agreed to by the Dominion was that within 
two years construction should begin on a railway connecting 
British Columbia and Canada. Ten years from the date of 
the admission of British Columbia into the confederation the 
railway was to be completed. 

It was exceedingly important that the long stretches of 
territory between Ontario and the Rocky Mountains be se- 
cured for Canada, if railway connection and future expansion 
were to be made secure. Between the settled part of On- 
tario and Fort Garry (Winnipeg) the country was barren and 
impenetrable; it served as a great barrier to communication. 
In fact, the prairies were usually entered by way of the 
United States. In what is now Manitoba and the prairie 
provinces, the Hudson's Bay Company held sway for about 
two centuries. Its only competitor had been the North- 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 407 

West Company, which, established about the opening of the 
American Revolution, had been absorbed by its rival in 1820. 
Settlements, other than for purposes of the fur-trade, did not 
exist, save for the solitary exception of Lord Selkirk's col- 
ony in the Red River Valley. As we have found, 1 this lone 
colony was subjected to many discouragements. In fact, 
the Hudson's Bay Company did not care to have settlers in 
Prince Rupert's Land and the North- West Territory. The 
Company's servants did not hesitate to declare the worth- 
lessness for grain-raising of a district which has since become 
notable as one of the world's important granaries. 

As Confederation approached, Canadian statesmen became 
interested in these vast territories. A committee of the Im- 
perial House of Commons investigated the Hudson's Bay 
Company's affairs in 1857 with a view, among other things, 
to finding what lands were suitable for settlement in order 
that they might be ceded to Canada. In 1863 the Company 
was reorganized and facilities for settlement were provided. 
But the situation was anomalous at the time of the formation 
of the Dominion. It was felt that Great Britain should exer- 
cise a more certain control over these territories, either by 
establishing a Crown Colony or by uniting Prince Rupert's 
Land and the North- West Territory with Canada. Added 
incentive was given by the fear that the United States might 
acquire the lands in question. In 1867 Russia sold Alaska to 
the United States ; the addition of lands connecting the 
United States with Alaska would thereafter seem a nat- 
ural step. In 1865 Macdonald wrote: "If Canada is to re- 
main a country separate from the United States, it is of great 
importance that they should not get behind us by right or by 
force and intercept the route to the Pacific." 2 

The province of Quebec was not keenly interested in Mac- 
donald's plans, for the French half-breeds, or metis, as they 
were called, might suffer with the settlement of the country 
in which they found occupation in serving the interests of the 
Hudson's Bay Company. In 1867 resolutions were intro- 
duced in the Dominion House of Commons urging the union 

1 See chapter xi, 2 Egerton, Canada under British Rule, p. 266, 



408 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

with the new Dominion of the territories under the Hudson's 
Bay Company. The resolutions were sent to England, where 
negotiations finally culminated in an arrangement satisfac- 
tory to Canada. In 1869 the deed of surrender was signed by 
the Hudson's Bay Company; Canada paid the Company 
£300,000 and left the trading rights of the territories in the 
hands of their former owners. 

The transfer was not to be made without disturbance. 
The metis did not want annexation, for they feared they 
might lose their lands. The descendants of Lord Selkirk's 
Scotch settlers were discontented as well. Of course the 
Company's employees did not look with favor on the sale of 
the Hudson's Bay Company's lands to Canada. To make 
matters worse, the surveyors, who penetrated the Red River 
country in 1869, seem to have shown want of tact in their 
work. As a result, the French Canadians rose in rebellion 
under a leader by the name of Louis Riel and established a 
provisional government. They aroused the anger of Canada 
by the murder of Thomas Scott of Ontario. Troops were 
sent to the seat of trouble in the spring of 1870. Riel 
promptly fled across the border and the work of annexation 
proceeded with little further interruption. In 1870 the Red 
River territory was organized as a province of the Dominion 
under the name of Manitoba, with the same political ma- 
chinery as in the other provinces. The prairies between 
Manitoba and British Columbia were as yet so sparsely 
settled that they were not formed into the provinces of Sas- 
katchewan and Alberta until thirty-five years later. 

When the Dominion was extended from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, the matter of next importance was the railway join- 
ing British Columbia and Ontario. Two companies were 
eager for the right to construct the proposed line. The Gov- 
ernment did not wish American capital to be used, and de- 
sired that the work be done by an amalgamated company 
instead of by two rival concerns. While this question was 
up, an election took place in 1872, by which Macdonald and 
his party were returned to power. Shortly afterward it was 
found by the Prime Minister's enemies that Sir Hugh Allan 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 409 

of Montreal had made heavy contributions to the Conserv- 
ative campaign funds. As he was the head of one of the 
rival companies desiring the government contract, the ex- 
posure of the "deal" seriously compromised the Government. 
Macdonald endeavored to defend himself on the ground that 
large funds were needed to counteract local patronage. In 
addition, Sir Hugh Allan was found to be backed to some ex- 
tent by the tabooed American capital. There was an inves- 
tigation of the scandal by a Royal Commission. Macdonald 
dared not face the vote of want of confidence and resigned. 
He had certainly used unscrupulous tactics, but this episode 
in his career should not be allowed to detract from the worth 
of his great services to Canada. 

The election resulting from the exposure of Macdonald's 
financial methods in the campaign of 1872 brought the Lib- 
erals under Alexander Mackenzie into power; from 1873 to 
1878 this party controlled the policies of the Dominion. The 
Liberal Party performed much useful service during its short 
tenure of office. Mackenzie, however, did not prove so bold 
in his policies as seemed to be needed at this stage of Cana- 
dian development. Commercially, Canada did not prosper. 
The panic of 1873 in the United States seriously affected the 
Dominion, which had not the powers of recovery possessed by 
its stronger neighbor to the south. Mackenzie was also slow 
in granting adequate government aid for the Pacific railway. 
So discouraged did British Columbia become with the sit- 
uation that it threatened to secede. The combination of 
economic depression and a vacillating railway policy led the 
people to wish for the vigorous leadership of Macdonald, 
even though he had but recently been rejected by the coun- 
try. It was not unexpected that the election of 1878 brought 
Sir John A. Macdonald and his party back into power.' 

CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL 

During the few years he was out of office Macdonald had 
perfected his ideas for Canadian government under the 
name of the " National Policy." A resolution which he in- 
troduced in the House of Commons in 1878 declared that the 



410 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

"welfare of Canada requires the adoption of a National 
Policy." By this, Macdonald meant a readjustment of the 
tariff for the protection of Canadian industries, by which 
prosperity would be restored and an inter-provincial trade 
developed. He looked forward to a later reciprocity agree- 
ment with the United States. The National Policy included 
also the grant of bounties for the encouragement of indus- 
tries. As the term has come to be used in more recent years, 
it has been extended to include immigration propaganda 
and all other measures tending to develop the Dominion. 

A generous attitude to the perennial railway question was 
a natural part of this policy. Some work had been done on 
the Pacific railway as a public work before the Conservatives 
returned to office, but this expensive procedure was aban- 
doned after the Canadian Pacific Railway Commission re- 
ported in 1882. Instead, the task was turned over to a new 
private company, with whom very liberal terms were made. 
George Stephen, afterwards Lord Mountstephen, and his 
cousin, Donald A. Smith, better known as Lord Strathcona, 
were prominent in the new company. Donald Smith risked 
every penny of his accumulated savings to insure the success 
of the enterprise. When the Northern Pacific Railway failed 
in 1883, conditions looked very serious for the Canadian 
Pacific. Liberal financial aid, in addition to the original 
grants, was asked and generously granted by the Dominion 
Parliament. At last in November, 1885, the Canadian Pa- 
cific Railway was completed when Donald Smith drove the 
last spike at Craigellachie in the Rocky Mountains. In the 
next year Sir John Macdonald rode to the Pacific over the 
new road and saw the great task, which he had long held in 
vision, a completed fact. The only "fly in the ointment" 
was a rebellion of metis in the Saskatchewan district, for 
reasons not unlike those leading to the rebellion of 1869. 
Riel again led the insurrection, which was subdued in the 
summer of 1885, after considerable bloodshed. This time 
he was captured and hanged in spite of strong efforts of the 
province of Quebec to prevent his execution. x 

1 Lord Strathcona is one of Canada's most remarkable men. A Scotchman 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 411 

In 1891 Sir John A. Macdonald died, shortly after a tri- 
umphant political campaign that had brought him to power 
for the fourth time. The slogan of the campaign had been 
"The old flag, the old man, and the old policy." Some ex- 
tremists had talked of annexation to the United States and 
this had given the sagacious politician his opportunity. The 
country realized its loss with his death and paid him fitting 
honor. A rising Liberal leader, Wilfrid Laurier by name, 
already recognized as a remarkable orator, paid a glowing 
tribute to the great leader whose life had been permeated with 
devotion to Canada. 

After Macdonald's death the Conservative Party lost the 
hold that it had retained for eighteen years on the political 
power of the Dominion. Three Conservative prime minis- 
ters held brief office after the great leader's death, but in 
1896 the Liberals under Laurier came to power — a position 
they were to retain until 1911. 

Sir Wilfrid Laurier proved a fitting leader of the country 
in the years chiefly important for the growth of unity and of 
remarkable expansion in varied fields of activity. This man, 
who became Premier in 1896, was a French Canadian, born 
not far north of Montreal in 1841. Although educated as a 
Catholic, he learned English in the home of a Scotch Presby- 
terian minister. He gained not only a remarkable control of 
English and its literature, but also a liberal attitude that ad- 
mirably served to make the suavity of Laurier a means of 
more intimately uniting the diverse racial interests of the 
Dominion. As an orator he has had few equals in Canada, 
either in French or in English. At the Diamond Jubilee of 
Queen Victoria in 1897, there was no more notable repre- 
sentative of the oversea possessions than Sir Wilfrid Laurier. 

The ideas of the Liberals under his leadership proved to be 
little different from the "National Policy" of Macdonald. 

like Macdonald, he early went into the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
For thirteen years he was a factor in the wilds of Labrador, but by the time of 
confederation he had become a chief member of the Company. When Riel's 
rebellion occurred in 1869, he was one of the men sent to negotiate and bring 
peace. He lived to an advanced and honored old age, dying in 1914, after long 
service in London as High Commissioner of Canada. 



412 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

As a matter of fact, the Liberals were accused of catching the 
Conservatives in bathing and stealing their clothes. Pro- 
tection was continued for native industry. Greater and 
greater preference was accorded to Great Britain by the 
Laurier Government in the matter of trade, until it re- 
ceived a thirty- three and one third per cent preference 
over foreign countries in customs duties. The imperial 
connection was strengthened in various other ways as well. 

The downfall of the Liberals came in 1911 over the matter 
of reciprocity with the United States. Before the death of 
Macdonald there had been advocates of a customs union with 
the Republic. Many had felt, on the contrary, that a union 
of this sort might be but a step toward political annexation. 
Reciprocity was urged in the campaign of 1891, and, as we 
have already noted, it gave the Conservative leader a telling 
slogan. Macdonald had the gifts of a politician, but there 
was much of sincerity in his words at the time of that cam- 
paign: "A British subject I was born, a British subject I will 
die. With my utmost effort, with my latest breath, will I 
oppose the veiled treason which attempts, by sordid means 
and mercenary proffers, to lure our people from their alle- 
giance." 

Under Laurier's leadership the Liberals sought to draw 
closer to the United States. In 1911 definite negotiations 
were carried on with Washington. An agreement was ar- 
rived at which, it was thought, would aid Canada by giving 
its raw materials a larger market and bj' providing greater 
resources of capital for internal development. The Amer- 
ican Congress sanctioned the Reciprocity Treaty. The op- 
ponents of the measure in Canada, however, found an op- 
portunity to attack it as a result of references to annexation 
made by Mr. Champ Clark in Congress — references that 
certainly did not represent the feeling of the people of the 
United States. The same fear again became evident as in 
1891 when Macdonald appealed so effectively to the elec- 
torate for a National Policy. In 1911 Robert L. Borden, the 
Conservative leader, successfully aroused similar feeling by 
denouncing an arrangement that would make Canada an 
"appanage of the United States." 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 413 

The defeat of the Liberals in the 1911 election was decisive. 
Robert L. Borden became Premier under the very evident 
development of a growing devotion to the imperial connec- 
tion and interests. The increasing conviction that Canada 
should link itself closely to the mother country and the 
Empire has been evidenced by an interest in a navy and the 
enthusiastic participation in the World War. The year 1914 
came as the acid test of the ideals which had governed Cana- 
dian growth since the days of Confederation. 1 

PROVINCIAL PROBLEMS 

In addition to the political development which has been 
sketched, there have been certain characteristic internal 
troubles that need to be considered. Occasional strain has 
occurred in the relations between the provinces and the cen- 
tral Government. Sir John A. Macdonald recommended in 
1879 the dismissal of the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec for 
the summary way in which he had dismissed his ministry. 
The prerogatives of the central Government were empha- 
sized also in the matter of the boundary between Ontario 
and Manitoba, in which Macdonald seemed to be working 
against the interests of his own province. 

The matter of education was left to the provinces, with the 
restriction that denominational privileges in effect at the 
union should not be diminished by later legislation. There 
was difficulty in several provinces over the question of church 
rights under the laws enacted after the union. Probably the 
most notable case occurred in Manitoba where education was 
a serious question during the nineties. When the province 
was organized, denominational schools had been established, 
but in 1890 the legislature made provision for strictly non- 
sectarian schools. The Roman Catholics pressed for their 
former position, and the Conservative Dominion Premier, 
Mackenzie Bowell, demanded in 1895 that such be granted. 
Feeling was running high, however, and Manitoba refused to 
act as required. The question was brought into the elections 
of 1896, but it failed, to deflect any large Roman Catholic 

i See p. 450. 



414 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

vote from Laurier, as the Conservatives had hoped. After 
conferences between the federal and provincial ministries it 
was finally agreed to allow religious teaching in the schools 
during certain hours, if a sufficient number of parents so re- 
quested. It was essentially a victory for the province. 

An interesting case in which the provincial privileges were 
tested was in the matter of the Jesuits' Estates. In the 
early days of Canada the Jesuits had acquired lands in the 
French Canadian province of Quebec. With the abolition of 
the Order in 1773 these lands came into the possession of the 
Government and were used to further public instruction in 
the province of Quebec. When the Jesuit Order was reestab- 
lished in the nineteenth century, it naturally demanded back 
its lands. But the Roman Catholic bishops laid claims to 
the lands as well. At last, in 1888, the Quebec legislature 
passed a bill authorizing compensation to the Jesuits in the 
sum of $400,000, but with the provision that distribution 
should not be made until the Pope had declared his wishes. 
Extreme Protestants were aroused by this appeal to an out- 
side Government in order to settle an affair that concerned 
Canadian lands. The Pope awarded the compensation, in 
part to the Jesuits, in part to the Roman Catholic bishops, 
and in part to Laval University. A resolution introduced 
in the Dominion House of Commons to disallow the Quebec 
Jesuits' Estates Act was voted down. Thus another in- 
stance of provincial independence was furnished. 

There has been considerable racial strain and stress not 
unlike that in South Africa. The French have remained in 
an overwhelming majority in Quebec. They have been ap- 
prehensive of losing the strong position they had at the time 
of Confederation, on account of the growth of the other, and 
especially the western, provinces. The French Canadians 
have been very tenacious of their institutions, language, and 
religion, and jealous of any infringement of their rights. As 
time has gone on, the French have grown stronger, if any- 
thing, in Quebec, and have asserted their claims to special 
school concessions in those counties of eastern Ontario border- 
ing on Quebec. 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 415 

In general, this group has proved loyal to the British Em- 
pire. As might be expected, however, they have not shown 
such spontaneity in the meeting of imperial needs as their 
British fellow citizens. The World War brought this issue 
clearly before the French Canadians. Even Sir Wilfrid 
Laurier was in favor of an army liable for home service 
only, and Quebec, in the election of 1917, registered its feel- 
ing on compulsory service by granting the Borden Govern- 
ment but three seats out of sixty-five. At that time the 
Quebec Nationalists under the lead of Henri Bourassa even 
talked of secession; during the South African War Bourassa 
opposed closer relations between Canada and the Empire, 
and the assumption of an obligation for the defense of the 
Empire. It is probably inevitable that in Canada as in 
South Africa local interests should more largely control the 
racial group that is not British. 1 

THE CANADA OF TO-DAY 

The Dominion of Canada has a population of nearly nine 
million. As the total area of Canada is about the same as 
that of the United States, the population per square mile is 
comparatively low. On the contrary, there is no general 
distribution, for the inhabited part of Canada is largely con- 
fined to a rather narrow strip along the southern border of 
the Dominion. There are nine provinces: four, Ontario, 
Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, were united by 
the Act of Confederation in 1867; British Columbia joined 
in 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873. In 1870 the 
province of Manitoba was formed out of the territories of the 
Hudson's Bay Company, which had been transferred to the 
Dominion by an Order-in-Council of that year. The Yukon 

1 The death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1919 removed one of the most pictur- 
esque and most beloved statesmen from Canadian public life. His career 
serves as an excellent illustration of the patriotism of a Canadian whose inter- 
ests were somewhat divided by his French-Canadian nationality. Though re- 
sisting clerical interference in political affairs, he was invincibly loyal to his 
race and clung to the last to Quebec. Laurier had opposed confederation in 
his youth and to the end could not be regarded as an ardent Imperialist. As he 
felt in 1867 that Confederation was " the tomb of the French race," so in later 
years he felt that the Dominion would be comparatively uninfluential in an 
Empire more centrally organized. 



416 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Territory was organized in 1898 and the provinces of Sas- 
katchewan and Alberta in 1905. In 1912 large areas of the 
Northwest Territories were transferred to Quebec, Ontario, 
and Manitoba. Quebec then received the whole of Ungava, 
excepting that part of Labrador which belongs to Newfound- 
land, Ontario was carried to the southern shores of Hudson 
Bay, and the province of Manitoba was extended northward 
to the sixtieth parallel of north latitude, the northern bound- 
ary of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia as well. 
In spite of these large additions to the provinces, one third of 
the land-surface of Canada is still in the Northwest Terri- 
tories. 

Ontario led in 1921 with a population of three million, 
followed by Quebec with two and a third million inhabit- 
ants. Saskatchewan ranked third with three quarters of a 
million, and Manitoba came next with a population of over 
six hundred thousand. Alberta, Nova Scotia, and British 
Columbia each possessed over half a million inhabitants and 
New Brunswick about three hundred and ninety thousand. 
Prince Edward Island, with fewer than one hundred thou- 
sand people, was the most thickly populated province of the 
Dominion. Particularly remarkable has been the growth 
of the prairie provinces. At the opening of the present cen- 
tury Saskatchewan and Alberta had smaller populations than 
Prince Edward Island. For several decades there has been 
a full stream of immigration to Canada, which reached a 
high-water mark in 1913 when over four hundred thousand 
persons entered the Dominion, more than a third coming 
from the United States. 

Agriculture is important in all the provinces, although the 
great prairie provinces lead. In recent years there has been 
much " advanced" legislation in these provinces in the inter- 
ests of the farmers. Fishing is a valued industry in the At- 
lantic provinces and in British Columbia. The chief mining 
districts are found in Nova Scotia, British Columbia, On- 
tario, and Quebec. The importance of the Yukon Terri- 
tory in this regard has declined within recent years. The 
older provinces, especially Quebec and Ontario, lead in man- 
ufacturing and commerce. 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 417 

The general election of 1921 illustrates well the developing 
interests of the various parts of the Dominion. In it the Co- 
alition Party, which was formed for war purposes in 1917, 
was very badly defeated. The Liberals came back to power 
under the lead of William Lyon Mackenzie King, the grand- 
son of the leader of the Canadian Rebellion in Ontario in 
1837. 1 The prairie provinces returned, almost as a unit, the 
candidates of the Progressive Party, the farmers' organiza- 
tion. The Conservative Party, which came to power under 
Sir Robert Borden in 1911, won fewer seats than the Progres- 
sives ; even the Prime Minister was not returned. 

In connection with the remarkable expansion of recent 
years in Canada no better test is to be found than the devel- 
opment of communications. So important has this been in a 
country with the population distributed as it is in Canada 
that government assistance and supervision have been more 
common than in many countries. The construction of the 
Intercolonial and the main line of the Canadian Pacific rail- 
ways has been described. The Grand Trunk, older than 
either of these railways, has increased in size, until to-day 
it is one of the chief continental lines. A third great sys- 
tem, known as the Canadian Northern, has spanned the con- 
tinent as well. The Canadian National Railways, under 
the control of the government, now include all the impor- 
tant lines save the Canadian Pacific — more than half of 
the railway mileage of Canada. Numerous branches of 
these railway systems have been constructed in the agricul- 
tural provinces in particular, by which many new belts of 
prairie have been opened to communication and to outside 
markets. It is estimated that over two hundred millions of 
dollars have been granted by the Dominion, the provinces, 
and the municipalities in direct financial aid for the forty 
thousand miles of trackage in Canada. The great railway 
companies of Canada are much more than common carriers; 
they are public service corporations with a high sense of obli- 
gation to the country. They have been particularly notable 
as advertisers of Canada and have granted much assistance 

i See pp. 225 ff. 



418 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

to Old-World immigrants in the occupation of unsettled terri- 
tories. Ify virtue of the Canadian Pacific Railway's ocean 
service on both the Atlantic and the Pacific an all-British 
route is maintained between Europe on the one side, and 
Asia and Australasia on the other. 

Thus far the work of the Canadian has been that of the 
pioneer. In the fifty years since the Dominion came into be- 
ing Canada has shown remarkable growth in many ways. 
Materially the great possibilities of the country have been 
realized, if by no means exhausted. Politically, responsible 
government, with a close adherence to imperial interests, has 
been worked out so successfully as to form an inspiration to 
other self-governing dominions. The National Policy of 
Macdonald has evolved into a national ideal. Imperial con- 
nections have been carefully maintained, and yet it was no 
idle boast of Canada's Premier that the Dominion took part 
in the World War of 1914 as a " participating nation." 

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 

For four thousand miles the United States and Canada 
have a common boundary. In addition, the population of 
the Dominion is distributed like a long ribbon along this 
frontier. It is inevitable that there should be reciprocal in- 
fluences of the one nation upon the other, particularly as they 
are of the same stock, speak the same language, and have 
similar institutions. The relations of the two have not al- 
ways been amicable. Yet, since the War of 1812, there has 
been peace, although at times trouble of a serious nature 
seemed at hand. 

Much controversy has raged over boundary questions. 
The early treaties were indefinite, owing to an inaccurate 
knowledge of the geography of the North American conti- 
nent. In 1842 the vexed question of the Maine boundary was 
settled after Maine and New Brunswick were almost at 
blows in the so-called "Aroostook War." The settlement of 
the conflicting claims of the two neighbors gave the Ameri- 
cans much less than they claimed, and the United States 
paid the State of Maine $150,000 for its loss; but the Cana- 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 419 

dians felt that Maine had received much more than was its 
due, as a result of confusion with regard to the River St. 
Croix, which had been declared in 1783 to be a part of the 
boundary. As it is, Maine juts so far toward the St. Law- 
rence as to make the direct route between Montreal and 
St. John cross American territory. 

The Oregon boundary was settled at about the same time. 
The Hudson's Bay Company was trading in British Colum- 
bia and along the Columbia River long before 1846. Citi- 
zens of the United States began to settle along the Columbia 
after Lewis and Clark made their famous overland journey 
early in the century. It was a question of great perplexity 
as to whom the district rightly belonged. In 1845 the Demo- 
cratic Party declared that the United States should have the 
coast to the southern point of Alaska, 54° 40'. The cam- 
paign slogan was "Fifty-Four-Forty or Fight," but after 
President Polk's election the administration was not eager to 
prolong trouble over the Oregon territory, inasmuch as a war 
was imminent with Mexico over Texas. The President of- 
fered to compromise with Great Britain on the forty-ninth 
parallel. After some hesitation, Great Britain agreed to this 
boundary. 

The Treaty of 1846 declared that the boundary line along 
the forty-ninth parallel continued westward to the middle of 
the channel separating Vancouver Island from the continent, 
and thence southerly through the middle of the channel and 
of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific. This gave Great Britain all 
of Vancouver Island, a part of which extends below the 
forty-ninth parallel. The British and Americans, however, 
could not agree on the channel that the boundary line was 
supposed to follow. It was a matter of no great importance, 
as it concerned only the ownership of the small island of San 
Juan. At last in 1871 the question was referred to the Ger- 
man Emperor, who decided in favor of the United States. 

Although all boundary trouble seemed to be over with the 
settlement of this matter, a further cause for controversy re- 
mained. The purchase of Alaska by the United States in 
1867 made it necessary to settle the common frontier with 



420 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Canada, especially after the discovery of gold in the Yukon 
gave great value to seaports. The land boundary of the long 
stretch of Alaskan coast from the fifty-fourth to the sixtieth 
parallels was to follow the summits of the mountains which 
lay along the coast and the line was to be drawn parallel to 
the coast where the mountains were more than ten miles in- 
land. The settlement between Russia and Great Britain of 
1825, which the United States had inherited in 1867, declared 
that the boundary followed the windings of the coast at a dis- 
tance not exceeding ten miles from the shore. The Lynn 
Canal inlet which deeply indents the very broken shore line, 
was most convenient for the miners of the Klondike, but the 
Americans claimed it. Some settlement of the jurisdiction 
of the two countries was necessary, in view of the growing im- 
portance and great attractiveness of Alaskan and Yukon 
gold-fields. Finally an agreement was reached in 1903, by 
which a joint commission of six members, three from the 
United States, two from Canada, and the Lord Chief Justice 
of England, was appointed to decide the question. The 
United States could hardly lose in such a body, if its repre- 
sentatives kept together. As it was, the Chief Justice sided 
with the Americans on the important points at issue. The 
disappointed Canadians declared that Great Britain's chief 
concern was to preserve friendly relations with the United 
States. 

Considerable trouble has occurred over the fisheries. The 
Treaty of 1783 gave the people of the United States fishing 
rights in British waters. This was extended in 1818, and 
again in 1854 when a Reciprocity Treaty was made between 
the two adjoining countries. In 1866 the United States ter- 
minated the reciprocity agreement. Yet American fisher- 
men were reluctant to discontinue their customary practices. 
Licenses proved ineffective, and the British had recourse to a 
small fleet for the protection of their fishing rights. Consid- 
erable friction resulted, which was terminated by the Treaty 
of Washington in 1871. Yet a satisfactory arrangement was 
not reached, as the privileges accorded the Americans in this 
agreement were felt by the Canadians to outweigh those 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 421 

granted the Dominion. After commissioners were appointed 
to determine the amount of compensation, if any, Great 
Britain was awarded the sum of five and a half million dollars. 

On the west coast, trouble occurred over the fishing for fur 
seals in Bering Sea. The United States took the position 
that Bering Sea was a mare clausum, and attempted to pre- 
vent other nations from carrying on sealing. A commission 
that met to decide the question in 1897 declared against the 
interpretation of the United States and awarded Great 
Britain half a million dollars for ships wrongly seized by the 
United States outside the three-mile limit. 

Of great assistance to the peaceful character of the rela- 
tions of the two countries was the agreement of 1817 by 
which no armaments were to be kept on the Great Lakes. 
There have been, however, occasional causes of trouble. At 
the time of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837 insurgents ob- 
tained supplies from the American side. In the capture by 
the Canadians of the vessel used for conveying munitions to 
Canada an American was killed. The feeling aroused finally 
died down, and the man who asserted that he had shot the 
American was acquitted and released by the State of New 
York. 

Shortly after the Civil War the Fenian troubles were a 
fruitful cause for ill feeling. The Fenians of Ireland had 
sympathizers in the United States, who thought to aid the 
cause of Ireland by attacking Canada. To the Dominion the 
Fenians seemed a serious menace, as the Civil War had given 
military training to many Irish adventurers. In 1866 fifteen 
hundred Irishmen crossed the Niagara River, but were soon 
driven back, and their leaders were arrested by the American 
authorities. Another attempt to invade Canada in 1871 was 
suppressed by the United States; but the Fenian invasion 
served to arouse in Canadians a fear of American aggression, 
which has done much to perpetuate the feeling that the 
United States would like to annex Canada if it dared. The 
difficulty over the matter of trade relations, to which refer- 
ence has been made, is owing in no small measure to the same 
suspicion of American motives. 



422 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

It is evident that sensitiveness and suspicion, arrogance 
and tactlessness have been present in the relations of the 
United States and Canada. A brilliant Canadian journalist, 
in a series of lectures before an American university in 1917, 
has thus summed up the situation: "Each people has its ad- 
vantages and its handicaps. Both are alike in this, that Ca- 
nadians have been slow to learn from the longer experience of 
Americans, and quick to resent both dictation and advice; 
even as Americans, in the youthful days of their nation, 
thought Britain an old fogey. With so much in common we 
have often declined to learn the primary things in each other's 
history, and sometimes we have behaved with the brutal 
frankness of blood relations." 1 

The importance of good feeling and friendly cooperation 
between Canada and the United States cannot be overesti- 
mated. The great American Republic here comes into its 
most intimate contact with the great British Empire. The 
cooperation of English-speaking peoples for the spread of 
Anglo-American ideals is one of the great potential powers for 
good in the world of our time. In the promotion of this 
entente cordiale Canada occupies a strategic position as the 
great interpreter of the two branches of the English-speaking 
peoples. 

NEWFOUNDLAND 

One of the strangest members of the British Empire is 
Newfoundland. This island, which is larger than Ireland and 
but little smaller than England in area, is separated from 
Canada by the comparatively narrow strait of Belle Isle. 
Yet its connection with the European continent has been, if 
anything, more intimate than with the neighboring conti- 
nent. It is less than seventeen hundred miles from Ireland, 
and for centuries has been visited annually by fishing fleets 
from France and the British Isles. 

Newfoundland is Great Britain's senior colony. Although 
John Cabot discovered it in 1497, it was not until the end 
of the War of the Spanish Succession (1713) that France 

1 James A. Macdonald, The North American Idea, pp. 160-61. 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 423 

ceded to Great Britain its sovereign rights in Newfoundland. 
Even then the French retained privileges on the Treaty- 
Shore which were akin to sovereignty. In like manner, the 
Americans, by the Treaty of 1783 granting independence to 
the thirteen colonies, were given fishing rights about New- 
foundland that made the island more an international terri- 
tory than an exclusively British possession. In addition, 
the coming of fleets annually from Great Britain made the 
colony seem less of a colony than most possessions of the 
mother country; it was, in reality, a part of Great Britain 
rather than a distinct unit like Canada or Malta or Jamaica. 
Because of the fact that Canadian, American, and French 
fleets participated in the fisheries along with the vessels 
of Great Britain and Newfoundland, this half-colony has 
seemed almost more of a fishing ground for the nations than 
a British holding. 

The outstanding feature of Newfoundland life is the in- 
dustry of fishing. Until recent years, when agricultural and 
pastoral pursuits, mining and lumbering have been develop- 
ing, practically the entire population lived on the coast and 
engaged in fishing. It has been a colony of one industry and 
that a dedication of all the inhabitants to reaping the sea- 
harvest of cod, fish-bait, seals, lobsters, and whales. Two 
thirds of the value of the exports consists of dried cod and 
cod-oil. Herring, sea-products, and lobsters are also im- 
portant. Cod are more numerous in the waters about New- 
foundland than anywhere else in the world. From June un- 
til the end of October the season is " on. " In connection with 
the fishing for cod, certain smaller fishes serve as bait — the 
herring, the caplin, and the squid. These are followed to the 
banks and shoals by the cod, where the latter are caught by 
the fishermen in numerous ways. Seals are caught for their 
oil and their skins. Lobsters are being tinned in larger and 
larger quantities in Newfoundland; the industry began only 
as late as 1873. Whaling has assumed greater importance 
since the invention of the harpoon gun. The whale is valu- 
able not only for its oil, but for the by-products of guano 
and bone. 



424 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

This international fishing ground did not begin to evolve 
into a colony with a distinct self-consciousness until the 
nineteenth century. Until a comparatively recent period the 
policy of the British Government was not to encourage, but 
as much as possible to discourage, the regular colonization of 
Newfoundland. This attitude is to be accounted for largely 
by the wish to keep the fishing industry a British one, thus 
profiting more directly British interests, and, in particular, 
providing a nursery for British seamen. Until 1825 the 
Governor ruled without a Council. For the next seven years 
there was a nominee Council, and from 1832 to 1855 this 
body was composed partly of nominees and partly of elected 
members. Finally in 1855 responsible government was 
granted, just about the time it was being extended to the 
Australasian dominions. The system of government is like 
that of Canada, consisting of two houses and a cabinet re- 
sponsible for its acts to the lower chamber. Of the quarter 
of a million people living on the island the greatest number is 
concentrated in the southeast corner of Newfoundland, where 
the capital, St. John's, is located. Because of its value for 
fishing purposes and its use for the Newfoundland fleet, 
Labrador is a part of the colony of Newfoundland, though it 
is located on the mainland. 

The growing self-consciousness of the island has been en- 
gendered by the endeavor to bring the fisheries more and 
more under the colony's control. Much controversy has oc- 
curred with the French over fishing rights. France obtained 
in 1783 possession of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon 
off the south coast as bases for its fishing fleets, and also the 
exclusive right to fish on the west coast of Newfoundland. 
There the French regarded their rights as practically absolute, 
even to the point of prohibiting Newfoundlanders from 
settling on the Treaty Shore. The situation could not but 
become acute with the growth of the colony. It claimed the 
right to legislate for its own fisheries, passing the Bait Act of 
1886, under which the all-important bait could be sold only 
under license. The French retaliated by destroying the 
lobster factories on the Treaty Shore. Great Britain was in- 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 425 

dulgent of the French in order to prevent international diffi- 
culties, but in 1904 the tension was relieved by the Lans- 
downe-Cambon Convention. France abandoned all its 
rights in Newfoundland, and was compensated by a payment 
of half a million dollars and the cession of some British terri- 
tories on the west coast of Africa. 

American fishing concessions have caused considerable 
trouble as well. The privilege granted in 1783 and reaffirmed 
in 1818 gave the ships from the United States the right to fish 
on certain shores and to enter bays and harbors for shelter, 
repairs, and similar purposes. The Americans caused ill 
feeling by the use of larger seines than those of the Newfound- 
landers, by fishing on Sunday, by refusing to pay light and 
port duties, and by otherwise disregarding local customs and 
regulations. The colonists possessed an effective weapon in 
the restriction on bait-selling. By 1905 the situation was 
serious; the colony passed laws injuring the fishing interests 
of the United States, in addition to passing further anti-bait 
regulations. The various causes of trouble were referred to 
the Hague Tribunal, which gave an award in 1910. Great 
Britain was declared to have a right to make regulations 
regarding fishing without the consent of the United States, 
provided the regulations were bona fide and not in violation 
of the Treaty of 1818. The Americans were allowed to em- 
ploy foreigners on their ships and to land in bays and harbors 
as permitted by the Treaty. The award served to clear up 
many points of difference, and was a step toward the colonial 
control of the fisheries. 

The internal development of the island was as dependent 
on the building of a railway as that of the prairies of British 
North America on the construction of the Canadian Pacific. 
By 1890 plans were formed for a railway across the island. 
In 1893 the contract was let to R. G. Reid of Montreal, who 
had constructed a large section of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
way. The terms of the contract were altogether extraor- 
dinary; the contractor was to receive over fifteen thousand 
dollars per mile in Newfoundland bonds and to work the 
railway for ten years in return for grants of five-thousand- 



426 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

acre blocks along the line for every mile of railway operated. 
In 1898 the Government accepted a new proposal from Reid 
by which he was to operate the railway for fifty years and 
then to become the owner. He was to have two and a half 
million acres of land in addition to the previous grants, to 
take over the telegraph system, the electric railway in St. 
John's, and the government dry dock. For these privileges, 
the Government was to receive one million dollars. There 
was much objection to these arrangements. In 1900 Sir 
James Winter, the Premier who had agreed to the contracts, 
was forced to resign. He was succeeded by Mr. (later Sir) 
Robert Bond, probably the best known of Newfoundland 
statesmen. The new Premier arranged for a modified con- 
tract, under which the Reid properties were held by a com- 
pany, the telegraph lines taken back by the Government, 
and Newfoundland given the option of purchasing the rail- 
way at the end of fifty years. 

There has been considerable discussion from time to time 
of the wisdom of uniting with Canada. The island's interests, 
however, have been so distinct that union has never taken 
place. At the time of Confederation Newfoundland held 
aloof, as Macdonald did not seem concerned with the island's 
interests. In 1894-95, when Newfoundland was faced with 
serious financial disaster, a delegation went to Ottawa to in- 
quire concerning the possibility of joining the Dominion; but 
Sir Mackenzie Bowell, then Premier, was unwilling that 
Canada should assume Newfoundland's debt of $16,000,000. 
It is probable that this senior colony of the Empire will con- 
tinue to live its own life in its own way. It may be as well, 
for no British possession — least of all the provinces of the 
Dominion — is like the island of Newfoundland, wedded, as 
it is, to the sea. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

See the Bibliographical Note for chapter xiv. The government of Can- 
ada is fully treated in Edward Porritt's Evolution of the Dominion of Can- 
ada, Its Government and its Policies (New York, 1918). James A. Mac- 
donald's The North American Idea (New York, 1917) is an attempt to find 
common ground for Canada and the United States to meet upon. The 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 427 

hundredth anniversary of the War of 1812 brought out a number of books 
on British and Canadian relations with the United States, of which proba- 
bly the best is by W. A. Dunning, The British Empire and the United States: 
a Review of their Relations during the Century of Peace following the Treaty of 
Ghent (New York, 1914). See also G. L. Beer, The English-Speaking Peo- 
ples, Their Future Relations and Joint International Obligations (New York, 
1917) ; John Bigelow, Breaches of Anglo-American Treaties (New York, 
1917); A. C. McLaughlin, America and Britain (New York, 1919); and 
G. M. Wrong, The United States and Canada (New York, 1921). 

Newfoundland is given a volume in the "Historica' Geography of the 
British Colonies," the work of J. D. Rogers (Oxford, 1911). Lord Birken- 
head's The Story of Newfoundland has recently appeared in a second edition 
(London, 1920). An extended account is that of D. W. Prowse, A History 
of Newfoundland (London, 1896). 

The recently launched Canadian Historical Review, continuing an annual 
survey of historical publications relating to Canada, is published in To- 
ronto, and will undoubtedly serve as the important medium for the publi- 
cation of, and information regarding, research in Canadian history. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE IMPERIAL ORGANIZATION AT THE OPENING OF 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

The British Empire has grown through a period extending 
into four centuries; during all this time, with the single ex- 
ception of the loss of the thirteen American colonies two 
hundred years later, the structure has been enlarging from 
the time that Sir Humphrey Gilbert annexed Newfoundland 
in 1583. When Gilbert was adding to British territory in 
North Atlantic waters, Spain and Portugal were the domi- 
nant European nations with oversea empires. Just at that 
time, however, England was becoming mistress of the sea 
and thereby laying the base upon which an oversea dominion 
could be safely constructed. Therefore, before the Greater 
Britain of the twentieth century is considered as a whole, it 
will be well for us to review briefly the course by which the 
imperial territories were increased after the beginning made 
in 1583. 

THE GKOWTH OF GREATER BRITAIN 

During the seventeenth century the English were not by 
any means so important as other peoples in the building of 
empire. Holland attained a temporary leadership during 
this time, while Spain and Portugal were becoming more 
and more apathetic. England was adding to its possessions 
more slowly than Holland, but its work proved to have more 
lasting vigor. The interests of England were to be found in 
two parts of the new world in the seventeenth century. In 
the Far East the Honourable East India Company was 
trading in spices and other precious merchandise with no 
thought of sovereignty on a large scale. Before 1700 the 
Company had acquired possession of but four stations, 
Madras, Bombay, Fort St. David, and Calcutta. 

Across the Atlantic Englishmen were doing very different 
work. Early in the century the islands off the southeastern 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 429 

shores of North America were of such interest that by the 
end of the Commonwealth many islands of the West Indies, 
as well as the Bermudas, were in English hands. Most prom- 
inent among them were Barbados, settled by 1625, and Ja- 
maica, which was captured by Cromwell's officers thirty years 
later. We have found how the slave-trade was connected 
with West Indian development; therefore, it is not surprising 
to know that holdings in West Africa at Gambia and on the 
Gold Coast were taken about this time. It was in this cen- 
tury also that St. Helena was acquired by the East India 
Company. 

Most important of all in the accomplishments of the sev- 
enteenth century was the settlement of the American main- 
land, first in Virginia and Massachusetts, and afterwards 
along the whole coast from Florida and the Spanish posses- 
sions in the south to the basin of the St. Lawrence in the 
north. The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, separating 
the English in New England from the southern colonies, was 
captured shortly after the Restoration of the Stuarts. 

With the eighteenth century the Empire assumed a new 
and important place in the political world. Holland, Spain, 
and Portugal had declined, but France had risen in then- 
place to be Great Britain's rival for oversea territories. Be- 
ginning with 1689, a series of wars with France lasting over 
a century resulted in some British colonial losses which were 
offset by substantial additions of territory. The British 
mastery of the sea was the decisive factor that made possible 
the continual advance of British imperialism. In fact, the 
wars of the eighteenth century gave to Great Britain 
the leading position among maritime powers. By the end 
of the Seven Years' War (1763) numerous additions to the 
British Empire had been made. Gibraltar, various West 
Indian islands, and Canada came under British control; 
English-speaking people seemed to have secured hold of a 
continent. In India the Franco-British duel resulted in a 
decisive victory for the British, with the conscious desire to 
bring more and more of India under the Company's control. 

From 1763 to 1815 the rivalry of the French and the Brit- 



430 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ish continued. The revolt of the American colonies and their 
loss was a severe blow to British imperialism; a calamity that 
was made possible by French assistance and the enlargement 
of the Revolutionary War into a world conflict. As the cen- 
tury came to a close the Empire seemed to be dissolving, and 
numerous prophets uttered jeremiads on the decline and fall 
of British oversea dominion. The "Old" Empire was dis- 
credited. In the last of the series of wars with France — the 
conflict with the Revolution and Napoleon — Great Britain 
somewhat retrieved its standing, for possessions some of 
which were to prove of great value later were added at this 
time — British Guiana and Trinidad in the West Indies; 
Malta, Heligoland and the Ionian Islands off the European 
coast; and Malacca, Ceylon, the Seychelles, Mauritius, and 
Cape Colony along the course of eastern trade. In India the 
British power was reaching far inland from the original fac- 
tories, and a beginning was made in the Malay Straits by the 
acquisition of the island of Penang. 

The nineteenth century can be divided into two parts, 
from the point of view of British colonial policy. From the 
close of the Napoleonic wars until about 1885, when the 
other European nations became keenly interested in Empire, 
Great Britain leisurely added to its possessions by the occu- 
pation of new lands or of territories contiguous to former 
holdings. In India considerable energy was displayed. 
There, by wars with the native states, great additions were 
made in Burma, on the northwest frontier, and across the 
Indus to the west. After the Mutiny (1857) the Company 
ceased to exist and Great Britain ruled in name, as it had 
formerly controlled in fact, the Indian peninsula. To the 
west of India strategic points such as Aden and Perim were 
obtained, and in the Malay Peninsula further additions were 
made. In 1841 Hong Kong became British, and shortly 
afterwards Sarawak was the scene of British activity. In the 
Mediterranean the Ionian Islands were surrendered and 
Cyprus was occupied. 

The most noteworthy development of the years between 
the loss of the American colonies and the emergence of a new 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 431 

imperialism just one hundred years later was the growth 
among the English-speaking colonies of great self-governing 
" dominions," which were to become more and more conscious 
of the right of nationhood for themselves. Canada, which 
came to its own after the secession of its southern neighbors, 
grew until it extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
After obtaining political control of its own internal affairs in 
the forties, it went on to federation in 1867, furnishing the 
leadership in these two regards for the other self-governing 
Dominions. In the southern seas the British made settle- 
ments shortly after the American Revolution; for convicts 
were sent to New South Wales in 1788. From this question- 
able beginning there developed numerous settlements on the 
Australian coasts and in New Zealand and Tasmania; by 
1885 the convict settlements — they did not include New 
Zealand and South Australia — had freed themselves from 
transportation and had attained responsible government. 
During this time many changes took place in South Africa. 
The Cape and Natal came under definite British jurisdiction, 
while the Boers trekked northward and established the sover- 
eignties of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Later 
they were to be added to the British Empire and become a 
part of another self-governing Dominion. 

As a matter of fact, for most of the nineteenth century 
interest in the colonies was not keen, and the "New" Empire 
was growing naturally by extensions of settlements previ- 
ously made. The years since 1885 can be conveniently con- 
sidered as the years of the New Imperialism, when a great 
advance in imperial interests and in actual possessions was 
registered, not only by Great Britain, but by its rivals as 
well. The numerous islands and territories unappropriated 
by European Powers and yet too backward to defend or con- 
trol themselves were snatched up by the various nations dur- 
ing these years. Great Britain made important additions to 
its Empire in several parts of the world. 

Although there were accessions in the Western Pacific, the 
chief field for the operation of this new enthusiasm was the 
continent of Africa. It was "opened up" in the eighties; 



432 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

the decades following saw most of the continent parceled out 
among the European nations. Cyprus was " occupied" by 
Britain in 1878, and Egypt and the Sudan came under British 
supervision shortly afterward. On the west coast the terri- 
tory back of Sierra Leone — ceded to Great Britain in 1787 
— was acquired, and similar proceedings took place with 
regard to the hinterlands of the Gold Coast and Gambia. 
During the seventies the British began to exercise, by means 
of residents, a supervision of various Malay states, which 
were consolidated into the Federated Malay States in the 
following decade. The vast region of Nigeria was at first 
(1886) under the Royal Niger Company, but was later (1890) 
transferred to the Crown. In 1884 British Somaliland, on 
the southern shore of the Gulf of Aden, was taken over; in 
the eighties and nineties the protectorates of Uganda, East 
Africa, and Zanzibar, adjacent to each other, were brought 
securely under British control. 

In southern Africa great changes have taken place since 
1885. The discoveries of diamonds and gold gave value to the 
lands of the interior. After a war with the Transvaal and the 
Orange Free State just at the close of the century, these 
countries were added to the British possessions and later 
(1910) joined with Natal and Cape Colony to form the self- 
governing Union of South Africa. British power was exer- 
cised over neighboring territories, so that during these dec- 
ades the Empire came to include Nyasaland, Basutoland, 
Bechuanaland, Swaziland, and Rhodesia as well. 

Other additions to the Empire after the rise of the New Im- 
perialism include additional Malay states, further territory 
in North Borneo and about Hong Kong, as well as the addi- 
tion by lease from China of Wei-hai-wei in 1898. 

From 1814 to 1914 the imperial accretions were not at the 
expense of rival European Governments. Yet in South 
Africa, India, and New Zealand the enlarging Empire was 
met with military resistance on the part of native peoples. 
In South Africa trouble occurred with the Dutch in addition. 
The World War of 1914 created a situation out of which fur- 
ther expansion became possible. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 433 

The structure whose gradual construction we have briefly 
sketched is surely an imposing accomplishment. The Brit- 
ish Empire included, at the opening of the World War in 1914, 
lands on all the continents, as well as islands in every ocean, 
totaling about thirteen million square miles of territory — 
about four times the size of the United States and approxi- 
mately one fourth of the total land-surface of the globe. The 
racial mixture within this one political group is very great 
indeed. Within the Empire live 460,000,000 people — one 
fourth of the world's population — among whom are repre- 
sentatives of all the great racial divisions. Over 60,000,000, 
or one seventh of the total, are of the white race. The Indian 
Empire, with a population of over 319,000,000, is the home of 
nearly three fourths of the Empire's population. 

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE EMPIRE 

The political situation in so complex an organism presents 
almost as diversified a picture as does the human make-up of 
the Empire. Greater Britain may be divided into five dis- 
tinct groups so far as its government is concerned — the 
United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions, the Crown 
Colonies, the territories under the jurisdiction of chartered 
companies, and British India. As an outer fringe over which 
there is a lesser degree of political jurisdiction, there are the 
various protectorates and spheres of influence. The govern- 
ments in the Empire are by no means static. Progress in the 
constitutional development has been continuous, and in re- 
cent years, especially since 1914, very rapid. 

It is unnecessary to detail the government of Great 
Britain, for out of it American institutions have grown. Eng- 
land, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have been united under 
the control of one Parliament sitting in London. The House 
of Commons is elected from the United Kingdom on a fran- 
chise now practically universal. The party that can control 
a majority in the Commons rules through a Cabinet depend- 
ent upon its good will and support and, therefore, on the ma- 
jority opinion of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom as 
expressed at the polls. The Cabinet — an organization un- 



434 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

recognized by law, but wielding the greatest power in the 
government of the Empire — serves as the executive, the 
King acting on the advice of the Cabinet. 

Wales was united to England during the time of the Tu- 
dors. The organic union with Scotland was consummated at 
the opening of the eighteenth century after the two countries 
had been under a common ruler for one hundred years. Ire- 
land was more or less dominated by English kings through 
the later Middle Ages. Queen Elizabeth attempted to sub- 
ordinate it more completely, and Cromwell, in the middle 
of the seventeenth century, harshly subdued Irish revolts 
against alien rule. As we have found, this island was treated 
much as a colony under the old mercautile system, suffering 
even more than the other colonies because of its proximity to 
England. In 1782, however, England was forced to grant 
Ireland legislative independence, or self-government. This 
privilege was taken from it in 1800, when Ireland was made 
part of the United Kingdom in the sense that thereafter it 
sent members to the Parliament in London. 

During the nineteenth century the situation in the western 
isle became gradually worse. Being largely of different race 
and religion from the English and separated by a stretch of 
sea, the Irish chafed under the situation in which they found 
themselves. The desire for Home Rule developed, but was 
strongly opposed by the Unionists in both England and Ire- 
land. Republicanism began to appear as a result of mis- 
treatment and unrealized hopes; first as the Fenian uprising, 
later as Sinn Fein, this movement grew to an alarming ex- 
tent. By the opening of the War of 1914 it had become a 
distinct menace. Ireland has furnished the Empire one of 
its most perplexing problems, and England seems to have 
experienced uncommon difficulty in finding the appropriate 
time and method for its solution. 1 

The British Isles include, in addition to the United King- 
dom, two interesting groups of islanders, those on the Isle of 
Man in the Irish Sea and those living on the Channel Islands 

1 At the close of 1921 the revolting Irish were offered Dominion home rule. 
For this very significant extension of Dominion self-government see pp. 465 ff. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 435 

off the coast of France. The Isle of Man was a Norwegian 
possession until it came under the control of Scotch kings in 
the thirteenth century. Since the opening of modern history 
it has been held under the English kings, at first in a feudal 
relation and, since 1765, directly by the Crown. It does not 
send representatives to London, but has its own law courts 
and a Parliament known as the Tynwald. It is not to be re- 
garded as a part of the United Kingdom, but is much like 
a self-governing colony under the control of a committee of 
the Privy Council. 

The Channel Islands, of which Jersey and Guernsey are 
best known, have much the same relation to the United King- 
dom as the Isle of Man. They are the one remnant of the 
old Duchy of Normandy still held by the British Crown. 
The Channel Islands have their own assemblies, their 
peculiar laws, and a bilingual system, Norman-French still 
being spoken in the islands. Like the Isle of Man, they 
are best thought of as making up a small self-governing 
dominion similarly controlled by the Privy Council. The 
laws and customs of the islands retain, to an uncommon de- 
gree, the evidence of a long and unbroken tradition. When 
George V visited this ancient duchy in 1921, he received as 
feudal overlord the homage of the fief-holders. One of the 
seigneurs performed his serjeanty, by the presentation, as of 
old, of two mallard ducks to the sovereign. 

What are known commonly as the self-governing Domin- 
ions are those parts of the British Empire across the seas 
where the British stock is predominant and where, in conse- 
quence, the privilege of ruling themselves on terms similar to 
those in the United Kingdom has found expression. They 
are five in number, the Colony of Newfoundland and the Do- 
minion of Canada in the western hemisphere and the Union 
of South Africa, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Com- 
monwealth of Australia south of the equator. Newfoundland 
has always been a unit, but in every other case the present 
political organization is the result of a federation or union. It 
is unnecessary to consider the government of these Dominions, 
as that was explained when the history of these various colo- 



436 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

nies received consideration. To each is sent a representative 
of the Crown, whose power is as limited as is that of the King 
in Great Britain. Each has the parliamentary system with 
a Cabinet as the executive, the idea of which has gone to 
the colonies along with English common law and culture. 
The formation of the federations has necessitated the study 
of similar systems, such as exist in the United States and 
Switzerland, and the inclusion of principles not found in the 
government of the United Kingdom. The upper houses in 
the self-governing colonies have tended to represent the geo- 
graphical divisions, as in the United States. 

The Dominions are bound to Great Britain in a variety of 
ways. The racial bond and the common cultural heritage 
are very significant. The self-governing Dominions are the 
only important imperial possessions outside the British Isles 
in which the white race lives in any large numbers. Of the 
60,000,000 white people in the Empire, three fourths are in 
Great Britain and most of the remainder in the five Domin- 
ions. There are numerous common commercial and finan- 
cial interests as well. This has been particularly true be- 
cause of the importance of England as a manufacturing 
country and because of the need of assistance by the rapidly 
expanding Dominions for their adequate growth. The over- 
sea possessions have Agents-General or High Commissioners 
in London to watch over the interests of the Dominions they 
represent and to further the financial and commercial welfare 
of their constituents. In recent years attempts have been 
made to increase the commercial interdependence within the 
Empire. Since 1908 Trade Commissioners have been ap- 
pointed by the Board of Trade in each of the oversea Domin- 
ions as well as elsewhere in the Empire. The administration 
of this service has been handed over by the Board of Trade 
to the Department of Oversea Trade. 

Legally there are a number of ways in which the attach- 
ment of the Dominions to Great Britain has been expressed. 
Each of the five has a Governor or Governor-General ap- 
pointed by, and a representative of, the Crown. Further- 
more, Dominion legislation must receive the assent of the 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 437 

Crown and must not be inconsistent with any Imperial Act of 
Parliament. The Parliament of London has the right to 
pass laws for the Empire as a whole, but such a power has be- 
come less and less operative. The right of the Imperial Gov- 
ernment to withhold assent to Dominion legislation is prac- 
tically obsolete. There also exists the right of appeal from 
the Dominions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Coun- 
cil. 1 The ties that bind the Dominions in a legal way to the 
Government in London have been the subject of much dis- 
cussion in recent years. There has been a decided tendency 
on the part of the oversea colonies with responsible govern- 
ment to minimize the legal bonds that subordinate them to 
the mother country or, at least, so to interpret the consti- 
tutional relationship as to emphasize the equality of the 
Dominions and Great Britain. Recent epoch-making de- 
velopments, especially in the relation of the Dominions to 
the Imperial Cabinet and the foreign policy of the Empire, 
have been reserved for a later chapter. 2 

British India does not come under the jurisdiction of the 
Colonial Office, largely because of its size and of the great and 
complicated problems peculiar to India which are connected 
with its administration. As we have learned, it was for long 
under the East India Company, but, as time went on, the 
British Government more and more carefully supervised the 
administration of the Company. In 1858 the Indian posses- 
sions were transferred to the Crown. With the method of gov- 
erning India then and the changes since made we are not here 
concerned. 3 The Indian Empire's connection with the home 
Government is made, not through the Colonial Office, but by 
means of a Secretary of State for India, who is assisted by a 
Council and numerous subordinates in the India Office The 
Secretary of State for India is a member of the Cabinet ad- 
vising the Government on Indian matters and responsible to 
Parliament for the conduct of affairs in this part of the Em- 
pire. It is through him that the Viceroy in India communi- 

1 See Jenks, The Government of the British Empire, pp. 63-66, and Lowell, 
The Government of England, n, 392-407. 

2 See pp. 308 ff. 3 See chapter xvm. 



4S8 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

cates to the home Government and vice versa. India has re- 
ceived increasing rights of participation in the government of 
the peninsula from time to time, but relatively few of its peo- 
ple share as yet in the government of their land. 

A large number of colonies are known as Crown Colonies. 
They vary in the nature of their governments, but are alike 
in the fact that they do not have responsible government as 
do the Dominions; they are more or less directly under the 
control of the Colonial Office. This department, headed 
since 1854 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, has 
charge of matters concerned not only with the Crown Colo- 
nies, but also with the Dominions. The business of the Of- 
fice, however, is largely made up of Crown Colony matters, 
and it is now divided into a Dominion Department and a 
Crown Colonies Department. The relation of the Domin- 
ions to the Colonial Office is not so real as the legal connec- 
tion implies, for the direct executive control of the Colonial 
Office over the Dominions is almost negligible. The Secre- 
tary of State for the Colonies is a member of the Cabinet, and 
responsible for the conduct of his office to Parliament. 1 

The Crown Colonies are inhabited, for the most part, by 
backward populations or have been taken from other em- 
pires, and would, therefore, not be considered capable of gov- 
erning themselves according to British standards. At the 
head of each colony is the appointee of the Crown, who is 
assisted but not controlled by councils varying in character 
and number with the different colonies. It is usual to have 
an Executive Council whose members are appointed by the 
Crown, and which often includes non-official as well as offi- 
cial members. Although it has only advisory powers, the 
fact that its membership may include members of the colony 
with a great knowledge of local conditions makes it often 
influential in shaping the policy of the Government. 

1 The colonies had been cared for in a number of ways before 1854. Previ- 
ous to the American Revolution the Secretary of State for the Southern De- 
partment supervised colonial matters. After 1782 the "Home" Secretary 
took care of "southern" business. In 1801 the colonies were transferred from 
the home to the war office, where they remained until 1854 in charge of the 
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 439 

The higher type of Crown Colony has a legislature as well 
as an Executive Council. In its most advanced form the 
legislature is of two houses, the upper appointed by the 
Crown and the lower wholly elected by the inhabitants of the 
colony who are entitled to vote. Three colonies — the Ba- 
hamas, the Bermudas, and Barbados — are in this category; 
they may be considered as representing the highest type of 
Crown Colony. Slightly less advanced is a Crown Colony 
with a lower house partially appointed and partially elected. 
A good illustration of this type is Jamaica where the Legisla- 
tive Council consists of five ex-officio, ten nominated, and 
fourteen elected, members. 1 The five presidencies of the Lee- 
ward Islands have a Federal Executive Council nominated 
by the Crown and a Federal Legislative Council of whom 
half are appointed and half elected. British Guiana, Malta, 
Cyprus, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Fiji were similarly governed 
at the opening of the World War. 

In 1921 the island of Malta received a new constitution 
which has placed it in a position above any of the Crown 
Colonies. It was granted responsible self-government, 
such as exists in the Dominions, for purely local affairs, while 
matters of imperial concern were retained under the control 
of the Governor, assisted by an Executive Council. In 1919 
there was a very evident desire in Malta for a constitution 
granting responsible government. The National Assembly 
proposed a draft constitution, which was made the basis of a 
second draft constitution prepared by the Colonial Office. 
This, in turn, received wide discussion; the completed docu- 
ment was formally put into effect in May, 1921. 

The Maltese constitution makes provision for two con- 
current systems of government, one for matters of impe- 
rial concern and one for purely local affairs. The two are 
united in the person of the chief Crown appointee, who is 
known as the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta; 
from one aspect he is the mouthpiece of the Imperial Govern- 

1 Jamaica was formerly in the same category with the Bahamas, the Ber- 
mudas, and Barbados, but its powers of fully representative government were 
lost in 1866 as the result of protracted differences with the mother country, 
largely because of the emancipation of the negroes. 



440 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

ment, from another aspect the head of a self-governing com- 
munity. The constitution provides for a legislature of two 
houses. There is a Ministry responsible to the legislature, 
as in the Dominions. English and Italian are recognized as 
the official languages; speeches in the legislature may be in 
Maltese as well. Matters of imperial concern which are 
without the jurisdiction of the constitution are such as affect 
the general defense of the Empire and the position of Malta 
as an imperial fortress, dockyard, and maritime center. This 
novel constitutional experiment has been made in order to 
grant a colony of great imperial importance, with a popula- 
tion largely non-British, a measure of self-government; this 
diarchical system seemingly answers the objection that one 
might about as well grant a constitution to a battleship as 
give one to Malta. 1 

Below those colonies with a lower house partially ap- 
pointed and partially elected are those with legislatures 
wholly nominated; in the western hemisphere British Hon- 
duras, the Windward Islands, and Trinidad are representa- 
tives of this most common form of Crown Colony. In a few 
colonies, of which Gibraltar and St. Helena are illustrations, 
the Governor is the autocratic ruler of the colony. Mili- 
tary reasons have been influential in deciding the govern- 
mental character of this group of British possessions. 

Next below the Crown Colonies are the protectorates. By 
far the greatest number of protected states are the native 
states of India, whose relation to the Indian Government has 
been explained on another page. The Federated Malay 
States have a similar connection with the Straits Settlements. 
This class of imperial possessions is well represented in the 
various parts of Africa. Bechuanaland in the south, Somal- 
iland, Uganda and Nyasaland in the east are protectorates. 
In addition, Gambia, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria in west 
Africa, and Kenya on the eastern coast are Crown Colonies 
with which native protected states are connected. Pre- 
vious to the opening of the World War, Egypt was a part of 

1 See the official Papers Relating to the New Constitution of Malta. May, 
1921 (Cmd. 1321). 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 441 

the Turkish Empire with an hereditary line of rulers who 
were " advised" to such an extent as to make the rule essen- 
tially British; the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was under the joint 
administration of Great Britain and Egypt. When the war 
broke out in 1914 the informal Egyptian protectorate became 
formal, to the great dissatisfaction of many Egyptians. In 
1922 Egypt obtained the status of an independent, sovereign 
state. 

There is a small group of British holdings that are admin- 
istered by chartered companies. The commercial interests 
of the eighties are responsible for a sort of development re- 
calling to mind the trading companies of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. The British North Borneo Company 
was granted a charter in 1881 for the purpose of acquiring 
and governing territories in North Borneo. It does not 
engage in trade, however, and its Governor is appointed 
with the approval of the Colonial Secretary. 

The exploitation of Africa in the eighties offered consider- 
able opportunity for the activity of trading syndicates. In 
1886 the National African Company obtained a charter un- 
der the name of the Royal Niger Company which enabled it 
to develop and administer the valuable lands along the Ni- 
ger River. This Company was very active for the remainder 
of the century; it surrendered its charter in 1899, when grow- 
ing international complications as well as the increasing bur- 
den of the administration led to the formation of British pro- 
tectorates in this important commercial region, "one of the 
most solid and valuable possessions of the British Crown." 
Similarly in East Africa a British chartered company held 
sway for a time. The Imperial British East African Com- 
pany received a royal charter in 1888 to administer some ter- 
ritories obtained from the Sultan of Zanzibar the year before. 
The task was so great and the Germans were so active in East 
Africa that the Company surrendered its rights to the British 
Government in 1895. 

The best known of the modern chartered companies is the 
British South Africa Company with which we have become 
familiar in studying the efforts of Cecil Rhodes to establish 



442 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

British dominion in the lands which Livingstone had made 
known. 1 This important Company obtained its charter in 
1889; it has retained the right to administer the government 
of Rhodesia to the present time. This chartered Company 
has done notable work for the Empire in developing a part of 
Africa so full of possibilities. It will soon cease to exercise 
its rights in Rhodesia where the inhabitants are already ask- 
ing for a responsible government. 

A more shadowy relationship is borne to certain states, not 
under British jurisdiction, but whose position gives the British 
Empire an inherent interest in their development. Under 
this caption Egypt, Oman, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and 
Tibet might be included. Very definite spheres of influence 
were marked out in Persia and China in the opening years 
of the twentieth century. 

COLONIAL CONFERENCES 

Truly the British Empire is not homogeneous either as re- 
gards its inhabitants or its political divisions. Growing out 
of these conditions and resulting from imperial expansion on 
every continent and in every ocean are numerous interna- 
tional problems, which a more compact geographical unit 
would not have to face. Thus the foreign policy of the Em- 
pire is a delicate matter, requiring much care to engineer suc- 
cessfully, since so many different sorts of interests have to be 
borne in mind. This foreign policy has been in the care of a 
Cabinet member in London answerable only to the Parlia- 
ment of the British Isles. In consequence, no part of the 
Empire but the British Isles represented in the Parliament 
in London could be regarded, in the days before the World 
War, as self-governing, so far as the foreign affairs of the Em- 
pire were concerned. This peculiarity, as well as the need 
for greater cooperation in other ways, has led to efforts to 
secure the assistance in imperial affairs of the most highly 
developed colonies — the self-governing Dominions — by 
means of Conferences. 

The need for a closer articulation of the scattered parts of 
1 See pp. 365 ff. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 443 

the Empire was felt even before the days of the new imperial- 
ism in the eighties. In 1868 the Royal Colonial Institute was 
organized by men of both the great political parties to 
awaken an interest in the oversea Empire; from the outset it 
had as its motto a "United Empire." The Imperial Federa- 
tion League was the direct result of greater interest in the 
oversea possessions which arose in the eighties, and which af- 
fected not only the British nation, but other states of the 
world as well. 1 A year after the appearance of that note- 
worthy volume, Seeley's Expansion of England, the Imperial 
Federation League was organized with W. E. Forster, a 
former Under-Secretary for the Colonies, as its first chair- 
man. It was directly concerned with securing "by Federa- 
tion the permanent unity of the Empire" and thus combin- 
ing "on an equitable basis the resources of the Empire for the 
maintenance of common interests and for an organized de- 
fence of common rights." As the first chairman put it, the 
League was to promote "such a union of the Mother Coun- 
try with the Colonies as will keep the realm one State in rela- 
tion to other States." 

For a decade (1884-93) the Imperial Federation League was 
very active. Branches were formed in the colonies. When 
Mr. Forster died in 1886, Lord Rosebery succeeded him as 
chairman. In the next year the first of the Colonial Confer- 
ences was convened. This step had been urged by a deputa- 
tion of the League, and that society may rightly be regarded 
as an important factor in the institution of the Colonial Con- 
ferences. It urged that the conferences should be periodic, 
long before they were deemed regular and indispensable ele- 
ments of the imperial organization. In 1893 the League was 
dissolved. Imperial federation did not find a large response; 
as Lord Rosebery later declared, it appeared to be "an im- 
possible dream." 2 

The first Colonial Conference was held in 1887, the year of 
Queen Victoria's Jubilee. The Queen's Speech of 1886 had 

1 See chapter xvn. 

2 For the Imperial Federation League, from different points of view see 
Worsfold, The Empire on the Anvil, and H. D. Hall, The British Commonwealth 
of Nations. 



444 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

declared that there was on all sides a growing desire to draw 
closer the bonds uniting the various parts of the Empire. At 
this first Conference military matters were prominent, al- 
though commercial and social relations were considered as 
well. The Australian colonies entered into a Naval Defense 
Agreement, by which they undertook to furnish annual con- 
tributions for ten years for increased naval forces in Austral- 
asian waters. Germany was already feared. There was 
also an agreement for the administration of British New 
Guinea at the joint cost of the Imperial Government and 
that of certain Australian colonies. With the first Confer- 
ence began the long controversy over the matter of tariffs 
and trade relations within the Empire, but no act leading to a 
federalizing of the British dominions for this or other pur- 
poses resulted from the activity of the Imperial Federation 
League. 

In 1894 a Conference at which the self-governing colonies 
were represented was held at Ottawa. The proposed Pacific 
cable was the prime cause of the meeting. The Conference 
asked the mother country for the right to enter into commer- 
cial agreements with each other and to grant commercial pref- 
erences within the Empire; but there was no assent to this 
request, as it would have meant the denunciation of what 
Lord Salisbury called the " unlucky" treaties with Belgium 
and Germany. 

A much more important meeting occurred in 1897 on the 
occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. This Con- 
ference, in which all the self-governing colonies were repre- 
sented by their Premiers, considered in secret sessions the 
three cardinal points of discussion that have come up at most 
of the Conferences, namely, the tariffs, racial relationships, 
and defense. Through the recommendations of this Con- 
ference the treaties with Germany and Belgium were de- 
nounced. Trade preferences were accorded Great Britain, 
and the Dominions were led to feel the growing need for ade- 
quate defense of the Empire under the control of the Admi- 
ralty. Joseph Chamberlain had become Colonial Secretary 
two years before, and had infused a new spirit into the con- 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 445 

duct of the office. He desired some sort of closer imperial 
federation with the creation of an Imperial Council, but the 
Prime Ministers of the Dominions considered "the existing 
condition of things" as " generally satisfactory." 

Much the same results followed the Conference held in 
1902 in connection with the inauguration of Edward VII. 
The Empire had but just brought the Boer War to a conclu- 
sion. The more important colonies had shown their loyalty 
to the homeland and their interest in the Empire by military 
assistance. As would be expected, both the naval contribu- 
tions and the trade preferences granted to the mother coun- 
try were increased. Again measures for imperial federation, 
advocated by Mr. Chamberlain, were repulsed. An impor- 
tant resolution of the Conference of 1902 was to the effect that 
meetings should be held periodically at intervals of not more 
than four years. 

Normally the next Conference should have met in 1906, 
but it was not convened until 1907 because of political 
changes in Great Britain. A distinct step in imperial rela- 
tions was registered in this Conference — the first uncon- 
nected with some ceremonial — when the constitution for the 
"Imperial Conference" was worked out, including provision 
for informing the self-governing colonies of matters of impor- 
tance that occurred between the Conference meetings. De- 
fense again received much attention, and this engrossing sub- 
ject was further considered in a subsidiary Conference in 
1909. 

The meeting in 1911 was in many ways the climax of the 
series that began in 1887. It concludes the first stage in the 
growth of the system of consultation among the important 
parts of the Empire; the War of 1914 was to bring with it 
startling advances. Several colonies prepared elaborate 
agenda for the Conference held in 1911, and the colonial legis- 
latures discussed the matters that were to receive treatment 
at the approaching meetings. New Zealand, in particular, 
proposed numerous changes, recommending, for example, an 
Imperial Council of State, an Imperial Court of Appeal, the 
separation of the Dominions from the Crown Colonies in the 



446 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Colonial Office, the renaming of the Secretary of State for 
the Colonies so that he should be known as the Secretary of 
State for Imperial Affairs. The Colonial Office had already 
been divided into two departments. It did not seem desira- 
ble, however, to have an Imperial Council, as it would con- 
flict, on the one hand, with the government of the United 
Kingdom and, on the other, with that of the Dominions. 
The latter have been careful in the discussions concerning 
the reorganization of the Empire to safeguard their own 
privileges while claiming a better position in the imperial or- 
ganization. Foreign relations received full consideration, the 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs explaining the complex 
situation he had to face. Little was it realized that before 
the next Conference was scheduled to meet, the Empire would 
be engulfed in a World War. 

The importance of military and naval problems for the 
Empire as a whole is illustrated by the activities of the Com- 
mittee of Imperial Defense, which was functioning before 
the War of 1914 on an imperial program. The Committee 
was created, as the result of the interest of Mr. Balfour as 
Prime Minister, in questions of defense. The Conference of 
1907 formally agreed that this Committee should advise on 
local questions when asked to do so and that a Dominion rep- 
resentative should be summoned to such a meeting if it were 
the wish of the Dominion Government concerned. At the 
time of the Conference of 1911 Dominion representatives 
sat on the Committee of Imperial Defense. In the next 
year Mr. Borden asked that Dominion members of the Com- 
mittee should be given, in confidence, knowledge of foreign 
affairs ; his request led to the suggestion of the Imperial Gov- 
ernment that the Dominions have ministers stationed in Lon- 
don through whom a continuous and close relation with the 
self-governing colonies could be maintained. The suggestion 
had received little response by the time the World War 
opened in 1914. 1 

The practical results of the series of Conferences that cul- 
minated in 1911 cannot be regarded as very prolific. No 

1 See A. B. Keith, War Government in the Dominions, pp. 13 ff. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY EMPIRE 447 

super-organization, apart from that of periodic consultation, 
had resulted. The widely scattered dominions and the 
mother country continued to be united very largely by the 
bonds of sentiment and of a common heritage. Commercial 
and military needs assisted in preserving the unity of the 
British family. The constitutional bonds were to be found in 
the representatives of the Crown in the Dominions, but there 
was no effective unity in the imperial organization which an- 
swered to the new ideas that were germinating in the matur- 
ing oversea Britains. It should not surprise us that this 
anomalous condition existed in 1914. The British Empire 
has never been conspicuous for system. In the newer Em- 
pire, as well as in the Old, changes have come as need has 
arisen; the method has been that of trial and error. If the 
British Empire is a more heterogeneous combination of terri- 
tories and peoples and governments than ever has been 
brought together under any other ruler than the King of 
Great Britain, it is at the same time true that the British 
have shown a remarkable capacity for making the seemingly 
impossible work. Of this the test came in 1914. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Surveys of imperial growth have been noted in the bibliography for the 
introductory chapter. The conditions under which imperial life in all its 
variety was being conducted at the opening of the twentieth century are 
summarized in The Oxford Survey of the British Empire, edited by A. J. 
Herbertson and 0. J. R. Howarth (6 vols., Oxford, 1914). The last vol- 
ume considers the colonies as a whole from the viewpoints of administra- 
tion, defense, education, commerce, etc. A bulky one-volume survey is 
contained in The Empire and the Century (London, 1905). In addition to 
the works on British government of A. Lawrence Lowell, Sir C. P. Ilbert, 
and Sir Sidney Low, an excellent and brief treatment of the subject, in- 
cluding the dominions beyond the seas, is that of Edward Jenks, The Gov- 
ernment of the British Empire (Boston, 1918). Among more detailed 
treatments of the oversea aspects are Sir H. Jenkyns and Sir C. P. Ilbert, 
British Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas (Oxford, 1902), Richard Jebb, 
Studies in Colonial Nationalism (London, 1905), and A. B. Keith, Respon- 
sible Government in the Dominions (3 vols., Oxford, 1912). Lord Bryce's 
Modern Democracies (2 vols., London, 1921) contains admirably lucid ac- 
counts of the working constitutions of Canada, Australia, and New Zea- 
land. Movements toward union previous to 1887 are to be found recorded 
in A. L. Burt's Imperial Architects (Oxford, 1913). The Colonial Confer- 
ences before the World War are considered in Richard Jebb's The Imperial 
Conference (2 vols., London, 1911). 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 

The peaceful evolution of Greater Britain had been going on 
leisurely for many years when it was suddenly interrupted by 
the opening of war in Europe in 1914. Within the Empire 
there had been conflicts, of which the Boer War was the most 
recent conspicuous example. Frontier strife with subjected 
peoples had occurred here and there. But Great Britain had 
not engaged in a major war since the middle years of the 
nineteenth century. The War of 1914, however, which be- 
gan in southeastern Europe in a dull midsummer, entangled 
the important nations of Europe and later embroiled coun- 
tries on all the continents. The British Empire, by virtue of 
its declaration of war against Germany in August of 1914, in- 
cluded in the struggle its numerous territories the world over. 
Never before had the Dominions, after they had become self- 
governing portions of the Empire, been drawn into an inter- 
national struggle. 

It is unnecessary to recount the story or explain the char- 
acter of the World War. It was a titanic conflict claiming 
every ounce of energy the combatants possessed during the 
four long years of its duration. The very demand for this 
whole-souled participation made it necessary for the British 
Empire, among others, to subordinate all interests to the 
successful waging of the war. As such, it served as an 
epoch-making event in British imperial history, for it tested 
the strength of the Empire's structure as it had never been 
tested before. Apparent lack of a unifying organization 
proved delusive, for unseen and imponderable bonds were 
revealed by the crisis. 

We are still much too close to the war days to measure 
with definite accuracy the widespread effects of the strife. 
Yet a recollection of the results of former great wars would 
naturally lead to a belief in important influences growing out 
of this most recent struggle. The War of the Spanish Succes- 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 449 

sion which was the culmination of a series of world wars 
against Louis XIV, the Seven Years' War, the American 
Revolution which broadened into an international conflict, 
the world wars waged against Napoleon, all were of vital in- 
fluence on the British Empire. One need not go far afield to 
find the effects on British imperial life of the most recent 
international conflict. New territories were added to the 
British dominions, rival empires ceased to be, the world 
awaited reorganization. So far as Greater Britain was con- 
cerned, the war not only did not stop the evolution we have 
traced in the preceding chapter; it tended to hasten the proc- 
ess of evolution. Certainly the attempt to assess the ma- 
terial and spiritual stimulus given to the British Empire 
should not prove unfruitful. 

MILITARY ACHIEVEMENTS 

The British entry into the war was by virtue of a declara- 
tion made by a government responsible only to the inhab- 
itants of Great Britain. This was inevitable, since the at- 
tempt to reorganize the constitution of the Empire before 
1914 had not proceeded far enough to form an executive that 
was in any way responsible to the self-governing Dominions 
as well. Fortunately the issue seemed an exceedingly clear- 
cut one and the oversea possessions spontaneously offered 
assistance, even though they had no voice in the direction of 
the policy that had led to the use of Dominion troops and 
resources. The hearty response of the Dominions can be 
explained on several grounds. The young life of the newer 
parts of the Empire was high-spirited and eager to share in 
a war that, it was commonly thought would be a short 
struggle. Fear of German aggressiveness, in case that Power 
won, influenced motive as well. But far more important was 
the belief in the unity of the Empire and the conviction that 
its life and institutions were worthy of perpetuation. 

The Dominions took part in the war in many fields. The 
widespread German Empire had extended into the south- 
ern Pacific and into Africa not far from British possessions. 
This but added stimulus to Dominion interest in the conflict. 



450 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Thus New Zealand and Australia were of much value in con- 
quering the near-by German holdings. The Australians oc- 
cupied German New Guinea and the adjacent German is- 
lands. New Zealand troops conquered Samoa. In addition, 
Australia had an effective naval force at the opening of the 
war. The Union of South Africa at the request of the Im- 
perial Government undertook the conquest of German 
South- West Africa, whose wireless stations were a distinct 
menace to successful British sea operations. The task was 
successfully completed under the leadership of General 
Botha, in spite of the fact that a serious rebellion handicapped 
the South African Government. The troops of the Union 
conquered German East Africa as well, though in this case 
the operations were under imperial control. 

Three of the Dominions, therefore, took part in attacks on 
those portions of the German Empire which were sufficiently 
close to them to make the cause not only an Imperial but also 
a vital Dominion matter. Far more important in all cases, 
save that of South Africa, was the dispatch of expeditionary 
forces to, and their participation in, the European and Asian 
scenes of conflict, where they uniformly distinguished them- 
selves. 

Canada possessed the largest white population found in a 
Dominion, and sent a proportionate number of troops to 
Europe. Although there was a regular military establish- 
ment of but four thousand men, the promises of assistance 
were quickly fulfilled. The need for more troops led to the 
adoption of conscription in 1916. The French Canadians 
showed great disinclination to enlist, and there was much op- 
position to the draft in Quebec after conscription had been 
adopted. Yet Canada sent overseas during the war or had 
in training at its close nearly half a million men. 

The Commonwealth of Australia had a system of compul- 
sory training in operation when the war opened. In conse- 
quence the military response was prompt. Conscription 
was never adopted in Australia; in two referendums the in- 
habitants of the Commonwealth showed disapproval of the 
draft. Yet, in spite of difficulties with the Labor Party in 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 451 

the later years of the war, the Commonwealth furnished 
over three hundred and thirty thousand men for service. 

New Zealand had no racial trouble, such as was found in 
Canada, and was in possession of a system of compulsory 
training at the outbreak of the war similar to that in Aus- 
tralia. As a result of these ideal conditions, New Zealand 
furnished a high percentage of men for the military forces — 
over one hundred and ten thousand. Early in the war Aus- 
tralian and New Zealand troops combined to form the Aus- 
tralian and New Zealand Army Corps, commonly known as 
"Anzacs." 

Fourth in rank were the forces of South Africa, which num- 
bered about seventy-five thousand. Newfoundland, where 
a compulsory service law was passed late in the war, fur- 
nished ten thousand men, and the smaller colonies were rep- 
resented by as many more. Outside of the self-governing 
Dominions many colored troops were obtained, and South 
Africa furnished large numbers for labor brigades. 

It will be evident from this record that the war was waged 
by the British Empire as a whole. Yet it must not be for- 
gotten that, of the military forces at the service of the Em- 
pire, the United Kingdom furnished the great bulk — over 
five million men. One quarter of the male population of 
Great Britain was in service, a proportion not reached by any 
of the Dominions. On the other hand, the Dominion casual- 
ties were in every case higher than those of the troops of 
Great Britain, so that the percentage of casualties to popula- 
tion in the United Kingdom and the Dominions does not 
vary greatly, ranging from about eight to about ten per cent 
of the total population. If blood be the price of empire, the 
Dominions paid in full. 1 

AN ENLARGED EMPIRE 

The immediate and evident consequences of the victory 
were of unrivaled importance to the British Empire if we 

1 The casualties of the Dominions are estimated to be nearly half a million, 
distributed as follows: Canada, 196,000; Australia, 210,000; New Zealand, 
57,000; South Africa, 18,000; Newfoundland, 3500. 



452 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

compare them with the results of any previous European war. 
Great competitive empires were rendered helpless. The co- 
lonial possessions of Germany were laid on the peace table. 
The Austrian Empire disintegrated and left the Allies an un- 
hindered opportunity to deal at their will with the questions 
of the Near East, always an important sphere for the exercise 
of British foreign policy. The Turkish Empire was again 
subject to partition and distribution. So far as British in-, 
terests in the Far East were concerned, the collapse of Ger- 
many had cleared the situation appreciably, while the transr 
formation of an active Russian Empire into a comparatively 
weak state unable or unwilling to carry on the aggressive 
plans of the Romanoffs greatly relieved the tension in Persia, 
Afghanistan, Tibet, and China, much to the simplification of 
British policy. 

A far more important consequence to the British Empire of 
an Allied victory was the addition of territory to the British 
possessions. As at the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, that of 
Paris in 1763, and that of Vienna in 1815, so by the Treaty 
of Versailles in 1919 British advance was chiefly registered by 
the addition of colonial holdings. The additions were not 
considered to be organically parts of the Empire, but protec- 
torates or " mandates" held by the Empire or some one of its 
parts, the administration of which was to be subject to re- 
view by the League of Nations. 1 

Of the German islands in the Pacific, New Zealand re- 
ceived the mandate for that part of the Samoan group for- 
merly held by Germany. This Dominion had captured the 

1 In the Covenant of the League of Nations the mandates were classified 
according to the "stage of the development of the people, the geographical 
situation of the territory, its economic conditions, and other similar circum- 
stances." Territories formerly a part of the Turkish Empire were considered 
as mandates of such a high status that their existence as independent states 
could be provisionally recognized. The peoples of Central Africa were rated 
to be at such a stage of development that the supervision of the mandatary 
should be more direct. Territories such as South-West Africa and certain 
of the South Pacific islands, on account of sparseness of population, or small 
size, or remoteness from centers of civilization, or contiguity to the territory 
of the mandatary, "can be best administered as integral portions" of the 
mandatary state. In every case the mandatary was obligated to render an 
annual report to the Council of the League of Nations on the territory "com- 
mitted to its charge." 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 453 

islands early in the war and administered them in a military 
way during the conflict. New Zealand was desirous that 
Samoa should become a part of the British Empire, and the 
grant of the mandate to New Zealand, with its implied limi- 
tations, came as an "unpleasant surprise" to the Dominion. 
The care of the islands was accepted, however, and they as- 
sumed a relation to New Zealand much the same as that of 
the Cook Islands, which had been subordinated to the Do- 
minion as an outlying possession. According to the mandate, 
however, no fortifications or naval bases can be erected in the 
islands mandated; therefore, they cannot serve as a naval 
outpost, though under British control. The chief problem 
that Samoa presents is the question of indentured labor, a 
form of service largely used by the Germans before the war; 
care is to be taken to safeguard the interests of the natives, 
since the primary purpose of a mandate is not to increase the 
exportation of rubber and coconuts. 

Before the war the Commonwealth of Australia had charge 
of British New Guinea, otherwise known as Papua. A part 
of this enormous island of almost continental proportions 
was held by Holland and by Germany, while Germany also 
possessed some neighboring island groups both north and 
south of the equator. Australian forces easily conquered 
German New Guinea and the near-by islands; they were 
under Australian military rule during the war. The man- 
date for German New Guinea was entrusted to Australia, 
although there was a much stronger desire for direct annexa- 
tion and the simple extension of the government of Papua to 
include the neighboring German territory. Instead, under 
the mandatary system the German part of the island was 
given a distinct administration as the Territory of New 
Guinea. 

The Australian troops likewise occupied during the war the 
German island of Nauru, just south of the equator, impor- 
tant not only as a wireless station, but also for its extensive 
phosphate deposits. At the time of the occupation the de- 
posits were being worked under a German concession by a 
British company. Australia wished the mandate, as it had 



454 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

been obtaining large supplies of phosphate from the island. 
Instead, the mandate was given to Great Britain, and an im- 
perial agreement was made by which New Zealand was to 
obtain sixteen per cent of the phosphate and the rest was to 
be equally divided between Australia and Great Britain. 
There has been some objection to the monopolistic character 
of the control of this small but exceedingly valuable speck of 
land in the Pacific. 

The German Empire included large territories in central 
and southern Africa, which have been adjudged to the various 
victors with neighboring interests. German territories in 
central Africa on both the eastern and western coasts have 
been treated as mandates directly granted to Great Britain 
and other European nations. 

There have been marked effects of the War of 1914 in the 
rearrangements of boundaries and the ownership of colonies 
and protectorates in central Africa. On the west coast the 
Gambia Colony and Protectorate and Sierra Leone Colony 
and Protectorate were not affected territorially by the out- 
come of the war. On the contrary, both the Gold Coast Col- 
ony and the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria have been 
slightly enlarged by additions from contiguous German terri- 
tory, although the larger share of Togoland and the Cameroons 
have gone under French administration. 1 In eastern Africa 
Great Britain possessed in 1914 the Protectorates of Somali- 
land, East Africa, Uganda, and Zanzibar. British East 
Africa, which is bordered on the northwest by the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan, had, as its southern neighbor, German East 
Africa. South of this large German possession lay more of 
British Africa — the Protectorate of Nyasaland and North- 

1 The British connection with Gambia dates from 1618. The Gold Coast 
became of interest to British merchants in the same century because of the trade 
in gold and slaves (see p. 54). Sierra Leone was brought within the sphere 
of British activity in 1787 as a result of the philanthropic efforts to find a home 
for freed African slaves; Freetown, in Sierra Leone, is the greatest seaport in 
West Africa. Lagos was ceded to Great Britain in 1861 by the local king; it 
became a convenient center for carrying out the suppression of the slave-trade. 
In 1906 it was united with Southern Nigeria to form the Colony and Protector- 
ate of Southern Nigeria. This British holding was combined in 1914 with the 
Protectorate of Northern Nigeria to form the Colony and Protectorate of Ni- 
geria. For Nigeria, see p. 441. 




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THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 455 

ern Rhodesia. Following the war the East Africa Protector- 
ate became a Crown Colony under the name of Kenya Col- 
ony and the Zanzibar Protectorate was renamed the Kenya 
Protectorate. 1 German East Africa was divided between 
Belgium and Great Britain, the former receiving a small por- 
tion which bordered on the Belgian Congo, the latter obtain- 
ing the great bulk of this German possession as a British 
mandate. It is now known as Tanganyika Territory. The 
addition of Tanganyika to the British holdings in Africa is 
of the utmost significance, for the Cape-to-Cairo Railway, of 
which Cecil Rhodes dreamed, can now be constructed in its 
entire length of some six thousand miles without leaving 
lands under British influence. 2 

The case of German South- West Africa was deemed to be 
different from that of German East Africa, as the former was 
adjacent to the British territories of the Union and the 
troops of the Union had effected its conquest. This Ger- 
man possession was accepted as a mandate by South Africa, 
although, as in the case of the mandates for New Zealand 
and Australia, direct annexation would have been much pre- 
ferred. There is a strong tendency to consider it as an in- 
tegral part of Union territory. German administration of 
South- West Africa had not been particularly considerate of 
the natives, who were used under a system of forced labor, 
and who were not allowed to own any large stock and not 
more than five head of small stock. The supervision of this 
new possession but adds to the already engrossing native 
problem in the Dominion. 

More than a year after the completion of the Treaty of 
Versailles, the Treaty of Peace with Turkey was drawn up 
and signed at Sevres on August 10, 1920. It was of prime 
interest to Great Britain, as its relation to the Turkish Em- 

1 They are so called from Mount Kenya. It is over 17,000 feet high, and, 
though not the highest, is probably the largest mountain in Africa. On the 
upper heights of this vast pile, which is situated at the equator, there are thir- 
teen glaciers. For further information on British East Africa see the official 
Handbook of Kenya Colony and Kenya Protectorate (London, 1920). 

2 In 1920 elaborate tests were made of a Cape-to-Cairo air route. One 
government crew succeeded in making the long air journey over much the same 
course which the proposed railway will follow. 



456 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

pire had been a vital matter for many years. During the 
war the Hejaz, in southwestern Arabia, was made an inde- 
pendent Arabian state. Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia 
were regarded as mandates, though of higher grade than 
those we have already had occasion to notice. France and 
Great Britain were made the supervising states to assist in 
the creation of an "autonomous Arab kingdom." In addi- 
tion, the more intimate connection with Great Britain of 
Egypt, Cyprus, and the Sudan was recognized in the Treaty. 
The delay in the completion of the arrangements for the 
Turkish Empire made the Treaty as much a recognition of 
the situation growing out of the war as a direction for future 
action. Yet the difficulties were increased as the Arabs 
became restless under the continued military occupation, and 
the Turks stubbornly refused to accept as definitive the 
arrangements of the Treaty of Sevres. 

Mesopotamia was accorded to Great Britain for "advice 
and assistance." It is of value to Great Britain for its inher- 
ent commercial possibilities, on account of its close relation 
to Persia and because of its importance in the eyes of those de- 
siring to protect India. Ever since the British mandate for 
Mesopotamia was announced in May, 1920, there has been 
much confusion, and distressing disturbances have necessi- 
tated a considerable expenditure of life and money. 

The problem in Palestine has been more clear-cut. In 
1917 Mr. Balfour made public the intention of the British 
Government to make provision that Palestine should become 
a "national home for the Jewish people." A step in the ful- 
fillment of the promise was taken when the Treaty mandated 
Palestine to Great Britain and a High Commissioner was ap- 
pointed to put into effect the British declaration of 1917. Al- 
though this use of Palestine has created satisfaction among 
the Zionists, it has not been gracefully accepted by the 
Arabs. The dangerous doctrine of self-determination seems 
here to be disregarded, since the Jews compose a minority 
of the population; in fact, not a quarter of the inhabitants be- 
fore the war were Jews. If the experiment of making Pales- 
tine a national home for the Hebrew race is to be a success, 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 457 

care must be taken, in the words of the High Commissioner, 
"to develop the country to the advantage of all the inhabit- 
ants." 

However difficult the nature of the Palestinian mandate, 
there is no doubt of the value accruing to Great Britain from 
its control of the Holy Land. Its situation is such as to 
make it of prime value in the defense of the Suez Canal. 
Hitherto Egypt had been the principal base for the defense of 
this vital line of communication between east and west. Pal- 
estine, however, offers as good, if not better, facilities for 
safeguarding this sea-road. It is farther from the canal, but 
there is railway connection, completed during the war, 
through the Sinai Peninsula. As the peninsula is practically 
uninhabited, there is no cause of worry over the communica- 
tions. Not only is Palestine accessible; the climate is so salu- 
brious, when compared to that of Egypt, that during the war 
it was found an excellent station for what was really the re- 
serve of the Army of Egypt. Even should the land of the 
Nile become less a part of the Empire than it has been, 
Great Britain would still have an adequate base for guarding 
the imperial highway. 

DOMINION POLITICS 

The war period has witnessed much of interest in the do- 
mestic life of the self-governing portions of the Empire. In 
New Zealand political development was largely ud disturbed. 
The Maoris proved loyal and willing to assist in the war. In 
1912 the Liberal Government under Sir Joseph Ward had 
been defeated and replaced by the Reform Party. The new 
Premier, W. F. Massey, retained the control of Dominion gov- 
ernment during the war, although a coalition was organized 
in 1915. It was dissolved at the end of the conflict, and the 
ensuing general election replaced in power the Reform Party 
under Mr. Massey with a more substantial majority than 
ever. In general it may be said that the Reform Party does 
not hold such decided social and labor views as characterized 
the attitude of the Liberals from 1890 to 1912. 1 

1 See pp. 380 ff. 



458 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Australian war-time politics have seen much strain and 
stress. In 1913 the Liberal Party came to office by a narrow 
margin, but was replaced by the Labor Party in the elec- 
tions held in September, 1914. When the Labor leader, An- 
drew Fisher, was appointed Australian High Commissioner 
in London, he was succeeded as Prime Minister by Mr. W. M. 
Hughes. Mr. Hughes remained in power during the war, 
but it required extraordinary skill on his part to retain his 
place in the very troubled waters of Australian politics. The 
extreme wing of Labor early declared Mr. Hughes a traitor to 
his party, and that organization assisted greatly in defeating 
his efforts to obtain conscription in 1916. In 1917 a National 
War Government was formed out of a combination of Mr. 
Hughes's personal followers and the Liberal Party. The 
new Government was defeated on the issue of conscription, 
but it did not resign, as constitutional practice would lead 
one to expect; it was feared that the Labor Party, if it came 
to power, would not ' ' carry on. ' ' The Labor opposition to the 
war in the closing years of the conflict became more serious 
than ever, and Australia found increasing difficulty in meet- 
ing the military requirements. "Nothing but the early 
termination of the war saved Australia from inability to 
maintain her forces in France." * 

After a settlement of the war-issues at Versailles, and on 
the return of Mr. Hughes, definite steps were taken to form a 
new Nationalist Party out of the Liberals and conservative 
Labor group which had worked together in the coalition 
Government. The elections in 1919 gave the Nationalists 
substantial majorities, and the leadership of Mr. Hughes was 
continued. 

The declaration of war found Canada ruled by the Conserv- 
atives under the lead of Sir Robert Borden. Although the 
Liberal opposition under Sir Wilfrid Laurier loyally sup- 
ported the war measures, divergences soon appeared when 
the Conservatives became convinced of the need of conscrip- 
tion after the return of Mr. Borden from London in 1917. 
The Liberals were divided on conscription largely along ra- 

1 A. B. Keith, War Government in the Dominions, p. 96. 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 459 

cial lines; the French in Quebec followed Sir Wilfrid Laurier 
in opposing the draft, while western Liberals joined with the 
Conservatives in forming a coalition Government. In Octo- 
ber, 1917, a general election, fought on the issue of conscrip- 
tion, gave an overwhelming victory to the Government, al- 
though sharp criticism was made that this decision had been 
greatly assisted by the manipulation of soldiers' votes and by 
the enfranchisement of the nurses, wives, widows, mothers, 
and sisters of soldiers. 

During the war there was an unfortunate recrudescence of 
racial trouble in Canada. The French population in Quebec 
showed itself much less willing than the English-speaking 
population to send its men to war. Indeed, Sir Wilfrid Lau- 
rier did not wish that Canadian troops should serve in South 
Africa during the Boer War and had only yielded under ex- 
treme public pressure. In 1917 he was opposed to conscrip- 
tion, but after it became law he urged that the law be re- 
spected. The attempt to enforce conscription in Quebec led 
to serious rioting in Quebec City in March, 1918. Much 
property was destroyed and the mob rule of the city was only 
overcome by military action, which resulted in the death of a 
number of civilians. French Nationalism became very ex- 
pressive during the war especially in the outspoken utter- 
ances of M. Bourassa in his journal, Le Devoir. 

The racial situation in South Africa at the opening of the 
war was in a much more delicate condition than that in Can- 
ada. The Boer War was a comparatively recent memory, 
which was carefully nurtured by the Boer Nationalist Party 
under the lead of Mr. Hertzog. General Botha was Prime 
Minister of a Government in the hands of the South African 
Party; it stood for a loyal acceptance of British rule and was 
not eager to emphasize the racial issue, though the party was 
largely composed of Boers. It was strong in the Transvaal 
and the Cape. The Nationalists were dominant in the 
Orange Free State where General Hertzog had been a Boer 
leader in the war of twenty years before. The British ele- 
ments found expression through a Unionist Party and a La- 
bor organization. 



460 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Hardly had the determination to conquer German South- 
West Africa been made before the Union was faced with civil 
war. General Hertzog was not able to arouse sufficient op- 
position in Parliament to prevent the attack on German ter- 
ritory, but others were quite willing to carry their hatred of 
governmental measures to the decision of arms. Prominent 
among the leaders of the revolt was Lieutenant-Colonel Ma- 
ritz, who had lived for some time in German South-West 
Africa, but who later had returned to the Orange Free State, 
where at the opening of the war he became an officer of the 
Defense Forces. In September, 1914, he refused to take the 
offensive against the Germans, and in October moved into 
German territory, handing over loyal officers and men to the 
enemy and receiving a German command. 

Leaders of more importance than Maritz were concerned 
in the rebellion. General Beyers had become Commandant- 
General of the Defense Forces in 1912; his disaffection proved 
dangerous. General De la Rey, very popular in the Trans- 
vaal, was counted on by the rebels for important service; but 
his influence was of short duration, as he was shot on Sep- 
tember 15th while proceeding in an automobile with General 
Beyers to take charge of the proposed insurrection. General 
Beyers attempted to hide his intentions after this untoward 
event, but his efforts to cloak his true motives were but too 
evident. In October the rebellion had begun in both the 
Orange Free State and the Transvaal, with General Beyers 
and General De Wet as the leaders. General Botha defeated 
the former Commandant-General in October and in the next 
month, De Wet, who had scored a temporary success, was 
routed by the loyal Boer leader. At last the rebels attempted 
to reach German territory, but General De Wet was captured 
on December 1st and General Beyers was drowned in the 
Vaal a week later in an effort to avoid his pursuers by cross- 
ing the river, which was then in high flood. 

Nationalism was not abashed by the defeat of a movement 
which must have found inspiration, if not actual support, in 
the Nationalist activity. Throughout the war the Govern- 
ment was face to face with a vehement Boer nationalism, 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 461 

eager for a severance of the political connection with Great 
Britain. The Nationalists even went to the point of sending 
a deputation to Lloyd George asking for a restitution of in- 
dependence. The Prime Minister of Great Britain met them 
in Paris in June, 1919; naturally, their request was refused. 
In August of the same year General Botha suddenly died. 
In him South Africa lost one of its finest leaders, a man who 
has been, not unfittingly, compared to George Washington. 
His mantle fell on General Smuts, who had already distin- 
guished himself both in military leadership and statesman- 
like activity. A general election in 1920 strengthened the 
Nationalists. The seriousness of the situation led to the effort 
of General Smuts to form a South African Party on non-racial 
lines, which should include all those loyal to the British con- 
nection. Another general election was fought on this issue 
in March, 1921, which resulted in the successful fusing of the 
moderates of the two races under General Smuts's leader- 
ship. The result brought something like stability to a Do- 
minion, whose war-time politics had been exceptionally bois- 
terous. 

UNREST 

Not only has the life of the Dominions been much vexed 
during the World War by internal stress and strain, but other 
parts of the British Empire have been subject to disturbance. 
Where self-government has not yet been attained this has usu- 
ally been the expression of a desire for more political rights, 
ranging all the way from greater privileges within the Empire 
to complete self-government outside the British sphere of 
influence. 

The unrest in India, so evident before 1914, was but in- 
creased by the crisis that faced Great Britain. Early in the 
war an investigation of Indian conditions was made with a 
view to granting further rights of participation in the Gov- 
ernment. On another page is to be found a brief description 
of the provisions resulting from the inquiry; it is not neces- 
sary to explain the nature of the Montagu-Chelmsford re- 
forms in this connection. 1 Unrest continued, however, in 

» See pp. 313 fif. 



462 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

spite of this effort to give Indians a greater share in their 
Government. 

Naturally the Government was more severe on "conspir- 
acies" during the time of the war. In 1918 a Sedition Com- 
mittee, which was headed by Mr. Justice Rowlatt, reported 
at length on "Revolutionary Conspiracies in India," and 
recommended additional repressive legislation. Two bills 
based on the Rowlatt Report were the result, one a tempo- 
rary measure to deal with anarchical movements and the 
other to make more severe the ordinary criminal law of India. 
The result was a violent outburst by Extremists against 
these " Black Bills." * The " Anarchical and Revolutionary 
Crimes Act" of 1919 was a political mistake, for it kept alive 
the resentment of the Extremists. In addition, dissatisfac- 
tion has been fostered by certain regrettable incidents, of 
which the most noteworthy was the Amritsar massacre in 
April, 1919. General Dyer attempted to break up a public 
meeting which was being held in that city in defiance of the 
British. On reaching the scene of the assemblage his troops 
instantly opened fire, which was continued until the ammu- 
nition was exhausted. Nearly four hundred natives were 
killed and the wounded were left to find relief as best they 
could. Needless to say, this brutal act was investigated and 
General Dyer dismissed for a measure manifestly intended 
to terrorize the people. Nevertheless, the memory of Amrit- 
sar remained, to the bane of orderly life in India. 

During the closing years of the war disaffection developed 
to a dangerous degree in India. There was considerable ob- 
jection on the part of Mohammedan soldiers in the Indian 
army to service against their co-religionists within the Turk- 
ish Empire. This feeling was greatly intensified when the 
Treaty of Sevres arranged for the partition of the Turkish do- 
minions, for the Turkish Sultan is regarded as the spiritual 
head (the Khalifa) of all Sunni Mohammedans in the world. 
The Mohammedan Khalifate crusade against the Turk- 
ish treaty was led by the two Ali brothers. Toward the 
close of 1921 the formation of Khalifate Volunteers seemed 

1 See the official Revolutionary Conspiracies of India (Cd. 9190). 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 463 

to the British so menacing that the Ali brothers were ar- 
rested and stern measures of repression instituted against 
the movement. 

The Hindu desire for an end of the British domination and 
the establishment of Swaraj, or self-rule, has been headed by 
a remarkable leader, M. K. Gandhi. This devout Hindu 
dresses simply and lives austerely while preaching the end of 
the British Raj and a return to a primitive state of society. 
He has been a very active advocate of " passive resistance." 
The Non-Cooperative movement assumed large proportions 
in the years following the World War. The program of 
Mr. Gandhi included the refusal to accept government titles, 
to serve in the government police, to attend government 
schools, to use foreign cloth, especially of English manufac- 
ture. 

When the Duke of Connaught opened the Indian legisla- 
ture early in 1921, he recognized the seriousness of the situa- 
tion: " Since I have landed," he said, "I have felt around me 
bitterness and estrangement between those who have been 
and should be friends. The shadow of Amritsar has length- 
ened over the fair face of India." At the same time the royal 
visitor appealed to British and Indians to bury, along with 
the past, the mistakes and misunderstandings of the past. 
But the Non-Cooperative movement grew during the year 
even to the point of becoming militant, contrary to the plans 
and wishes of Mr. Gandhi. The Prince of Wales at the close 
of 1921 visited India; the occasion was made the opportunity 
by Mr. Gandhi and the Moslem leaders for redoubling their 
activities, with the result that there was, in certain cities, a 
boycott of the Prince of Wales. Numerous leaders were ar- 
rested toward the close of 1921, among them Mr. Lajpat Rai, 
the most influential political leader in the Punjab. So danger- 
ous to the British control of India had the leadership of 
Gandhi become by 1922 that he too was put under arrest. 
It is to be hoped that there may be no such conclusion to the 
anti-British movement as that which occurred in 1857, but 
that a satisfactory program for the development of India's 
national life may be reached. 



464 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

The principles of self-determination and the rights of 
small nationalities have found response in other parts of 
the Empire as well. In a cursory survey, such as the 
present chapter aims to present, all these influences cannot, 
perforce, be detailed. Yet there are two parts of the Brit- 
ish Dominions where the new ideas have been so influ- 
ential that they cannot be overlooked, namely, Egypt and 
Ireland. 

Egypt was more closely bound to the Empire as a Protector- 
ate after Turkey had become a British enemy in 1914. The 
unrest which we have found to exist in Egypt in earlier days 
was not rampant in 1914. A spirit of nationalism, however, 
had been spreading among the people. Toward the close of 
the war the fear of British " colonialism" increased, and there 
was widespread trouble in Egypt in March and April of 1919. 
The Nationalists chose representatives to press Egypt's 
claims at the Peace Conference, but the delegation was de- 
layed as a result of the deportation by the British of four of 
its members to the island of Malta in March, 1919. After 
serious riots the delegation was allowed to go to Paris, where 
its labors were no more successful than those of the Nation- 
alist delegation from South Africa. The continued unrest in 
Egypt led to the dispatch of a commission under Lord Milner 
to the land of the Nile for the purpose of inquiring as to the 
real situation and of making recommendations for "prudent 
and ever-enlarging enfranchisement." The Milner Commis- 
sion, whose work was greatly hampered by hostile manifesta- 
tions, proposed that Egypt be ruled by the Egyptians, with a 
recognition of its sovereignty only limited by a loose relation- 
ship to Great Britain not unlike that of Cuba to the United 
States. 1 

The Milner Report, which advised the establishment of the 
"independence of Egypt on asecure and lasting basis," was 
apparently intended to form the basis of a treaty with the 
Egyptian Government. Much hesitation was shown to the 
acceptance of the "Milner withdrawal policy" as a solution 
of the Egyptian situation. Other European countries which 

1 The Official Report of the Mission was published in 1921 (Cmd. 1131). 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 465 

had a stake in Egypt were not willing that the Capitulations, 
which protected their nationals, should be disregarded, and 
in Great Britain commercial interests in particular were not 
desirous of a severance of the bonds that kept Egypt in the 
Empire. 

During 1921 the Egyptian situation reached a position 
amounting to a deadlock. The British were unwilling to re- 
linquish military privileges in Egypt; the Egyptian Nation- 
alists remained unbending in their desire for independence. 
A peaceful solution was reached early in 1922 after a visit to 
London by Lord Allenby, the British High Commissioner for 
Egypt. His representations resulted in a declaration on 
February 28, 1922, that the British protectorate of Egypt 
was abolished. In taking this step the British Government 
reserved to its discretion the subjects of Canal defense, the 
protection of Egypt against foreign aggression, the care of 
foreign interests in Egypt, and the British relation to the 
Sudan. 1 Shortly after the British abolition of the protector- 
ate, the Sultan, through the Premier, announced Egyptian 
independence and assumed the title of King of Egypt as 
Fuad I. This step is the culmination of a movement which 
began about one hundred years ago under Mehemet Ali. By 
1840 Egypt entered upon an autonomous existence which, 
after vicissitudes, has resulted in independence under the 
great-grandson of Mehemet Ali. 

IRELAND 

One of the most serious storm centers has been Ireland. 
When the World War began, the island was on the verge of 
civil strife over the question of home rule. The opening of 
the war temporarily healed the breach, as the Home Rule 
Bill was set aside for the time being. There was considerable 
recruiting in Ireland early in the war, but the western isle did 
not contribute anything like the proportion of soldiers that 
were furnished by England, Scotland, and Wales. It is esti- 
mated that less than seven per cent of the male population 

1 American readers will be reminded of the relation that exists between 
the United States and Cuba by virtue of the Piatt Amendment. 



466 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

served in a military capacity. 1 The attempt to apply con- 
scription in 1918 failed. 

In the early years of the war' the Sinn Fein or Extremist 
Party was constantly growing in strength. They rose in re- 
volt in April, 1916, in the Easter Rebellion, and proclaimed a 
republic. On the execution by the British of the Provisional 
President, the Sinn Fein organization chose, as " President of 
the Irish Republic," Eamon de Valera. Since the Easter 
Rebellion Ireland has seen little respite from war and an- 
archy. The very spirit and structure of social order seemed 
to be crumbling. An attempt in 1917 to form an all-Irish 
Parliament failed to succeed because Ulster and the Sinn 
Fein Party could not agree on its character and powers. 

At the conclusion of the World War the Sinn Fein Party, 
whose strength had been continually increasing, captured 
most of the constituencies in southern Ireland for the London 
Parliament. Instead of sitting at Westminster, however, 
they organized an Irish Parliament in Dublin, known as the 
Dail Eireann. The military struggle in Ireland became ex- 
ceedingly bitter in 1919. Agrarian outrage, the destruction 
of towns and creameries, as well as the loss of life by reprisal 
after reprisal, characterized what seemed an almost hopeless 
situation. The British Government used "Black and Tan" 
auxiliary troops, mostly drawn from ex-soldiers, but not un- 
der perfect military control, against the guerilla tactics of the 
"Irish Republican Army." 

Late in the year 1920 a new Government of Ireland Act 
was passed; it provided for Northern and Southern Parlia- 
ments and a Central Council. This plan was denounced by 
the Sinn Fein leaders, but accepted by Ulster; in June, 1921, 
the Ulster Parliament was opened by King George. Shortly 
after the formation of the Northern Parliament a truce was 
agreed upon between southern Ireland and Great Britain in 
order to negotiate for a peaceful settlement of a question that 
had become wearying, not only to Englishmen, but to the 
world at large, because of its very omnipresence. It was a 
decided triumph when the almost insuperable difficulties 

1 The Round Table, No. 35, p. 500. 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 467 

were surmounted at the close of the year 1921 by the signature 
of a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland on Decem- 
ber 6th. 

By this Treaty, southern Ireland became the newest mem- 
ber of the group of self-governing Dominions, under the 
name of the "Irish Free State." Northern Ireland was not 
to be included in the Irish Free State unless the Northern 
Parliament within a month of the ratification of the Treaty 
decided to come within the new State. 

The Dominion status granted to southern Ireland is fully 
and carefully stated by reference to the constitutional posi- 
tion of the self-governing states in the Empire. Article I 
reads: "Ireland shall have the same constitutional status in 
the community of nations known as the British Empire as 
the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, 
the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Af- 
rica, with a Parliament having powers to make laws for 
peace and order and good government in Ireland, and an exec- 
utive responsible to that Parliament, and shall be styled and 
known as the Irish Free State." In order to make the new 
Dominion status unequivocal, especial reference is made to 
the dean of the self-governing colonies, the Dominion of Can- 
ada: "the law, practice and constitutional usage governing 
the relationship of the Crown ... to the Dominion of Can- 
ada" shall apply to Ireland. The Dominion status of Ire- 
land is further guarded by the provision that the Crown 
representative "shall be appointed in like manner as the 
Governor-General of Canada, and in accordance with the 
practice observed in the making of such appointments." 
A highly interesting recognition of the nationhood of the 
Dominions is expressed in the oath (Article IV), which mem- 
bers of the Parliament of the Irish Free State shall take. 1 

No more significant step could have been taken than this 
great act of emancipation by which England evacuates Ire- 

1 In addition to allegiance to the Irish Constitution, the members of Parlia- 
ment swear to be "faithful to His Majesty, King George V, and his heirs and 
successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great 
Britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming 
the British Commonwealth of Nations." 



468 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

land after centuries of Irish subordination. So general was 
the satisfaction in England that, at the special session of 
Parliament called to ratify the Treaty, large majorities in 
both houses accepted this solution of the Irish question. 
The eventful proceeding was made more solemn when the 
King's address in the House of Lords was moved by the 
octogenarian, Lord Morley, who was formerly a Chief Sec- 
retary for Ireland and was prominent in the Gladstonian 
efforts to grant Home Rule to the Irish at the close of the 
nineteenth century. 

The Treaty did not pass the Dail Eireann so easily. 
" President" De Valera was opposed to an agreement that 
fell short of granting complete independence to southern Ire- 
land. The Treaty, on the other hand, was warmly advo- 
cated by those earnestly wishing an end to the five-year 
strife, among whom Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins were 
notable. It was finally accepted by the Dail Eireann early 
in the year 1922. 

It is evident that the British Empire has been subject to 
attack at many internal points during the war. If the re- 
view of the more serious problems that have been faced 
seems depressing, it must be remembered that war crises re- 
veal conditions for solution that are otherwise largely dor- 
mant. In a heterogeneous empire such as that of Britain, 
where all stages of political development and assimilation are 
in process, it would be strange if there were not places in the 
political structure that need repair or rebuilding. 

CONSTITUTIONAL GROWTH 

It is a much more pleasant task to review the effects of 
the great struggle on the constitutional relations of the self- 
governing Dominions to the motherland. In this sphere 
changes of a highly interesting and remarkably significant 
nature have been registered. 

The Dominions spontaneously accepted the war which the 
authorities in Great Britain assumed on August 4, 1914. 
But a dilemma was immediately faced, for it was evident that 
the oversea Britains had no adequate share in the direction of 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 469 

the forces that were sent to the theaters of conflict. In the 
Dominions the feeling had been growing for some time that 
they were mature members of the British group and should 
share in the administration of the Empire. The Colonial 
Conferences had served to "air" these aspirations; the war 
brought them to a head. The Honorable C. J. Doherty of 
Canada well phrased the feeling: "The hand that wields the 
sword of the Empire justly holds the sceptre of the Empire; 
while the mother country alone wielded the one, to her alone 
belonged the other. When as to-day the nations of the Em- 
pire join in wielding that sword, then must they jointly sway 
that sceptre." 1 

It was not long before the Dominions participated in 
the war councils of Great Britain. The early stages of the 
conflict revealed the unwieldiness of a Cabinet of twenty- 
two members as an effective war executive. WTien Mr. 
Lloyd George came to power in December, 1916, a smaller 
War Cabinet of five was created, which kept in touch with 
the larger Cabinet by a secretariat. Nor was this all. Tele- 
grams were sent to the Dominions inviting the Prime Minis- 
ters to attend the meetings of the War Cabinet as regular 
members. India was included as well, although up to this 
time it had not shared in Colonial Conferences. All the 
Dominions, including Newfoundland, accepted, though Mr. 
Hughes found the political situation so delicate in Australia 
that he could not leave at the time. Nor was General Botha 
present; he was represented by General Smuts. 

As a result of the British Prime Minister's invitation, there 
met in the spring of 1917 what came to be known as the Im- 
perial War Cabinet, which was the British War Cabinet plus 
the oversea representatives. The Secretary of State for the 
Colonies was also a member, but he was considered to repre- 
sent only the Crown Colonies and Protectorates. The Brit- 
ish War Cabinet and the Imperial War Cabinet met alter- 
nately, while an Imperial War Conference discussed non- 
military matters of Dominion interest. At the last session 
of the Imperial War Cabinet, Mr. Lloyd George proposed 
1 Keith, op. tit., p. 198. 



470 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

that such a Cabinet meet annually and become an ''accepted 
convention of the British Constitution." The Prime Minis- 
ter recognized the wide desire for a readjustment of constitu- 
tional relations by suggesting that the question of consti- 
tutional readjustment should be the subject of a post-war 
conference. It was later set for 1922. Thus, at one stroke, 
the demands of war had transformed the Colonial Conferences 
which had met every four years into an Imperial Cabinet to 
hold annual sessions. 

The significance of this epoch-making step was not unper- 
ceived, especially by the Dominion representatives. In a 
speech before the Empire Parliamentary Association de- 
livered on April 3, 1917, Sir Robert Borden explained the sig- 
nificance of the Imperial Cabinet: "It may be that in the 
shadow of a great war we do not clearly realize the measure of 
recent constitutional development. . . . For the first time in 
the Empire's history there are sitting in London two cabi- 
nets. One of them is designated as the War Cabinet, which 
chiefly devotes itself to such questions as primarily concern 
the United Kingdom. The other is designated as the Im- 
perial War Cabinet, which has a wider purpose, jurisdiction 
and personnel. To its deliberations have been summoned 
the representatives of all the Empire's self-governing Do- 
minions. We meet there on terms of equality under the presi- 
dency of the First Minister of the United Kingdom; we meet 
there as equals, he is pri?nus inter pares. Ministers from six 
nations sit around the Council Board, all of them responsible 
to their respective Parliaments." l 

In June, 1918, the Imperial War Cabinet assembled a sec- 
ond time. Two important resolutions were the outgrowth 
of this conference: the Prime Ministers of the Dominions 
have the right of direct communication with the Prime Min- 
ister of the United Kingdom on matters of cabinet impor- 
tance; the Prime Ministers of the Dominions also have the 
right each to nominate a Dominion Cabinet Minister as rep- 
resenting him at meetings of the Imperial Cabinet in Lon- 
don, which may be held between the plenary sessions and in 

1 H. D. Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations, p. 172. 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 471 

the absence of the Dominion Prime Minister. It was during 
this second session of the Imperial War Cabinet that Sir 
Robert Borden spoke of this war executive as a "Cabinet 
of Governments." 

Hardly had the Prime Ministers returned to their Domin- 
ions in the autumn of 1918, when they were hastily sum- 
moned back to share in the peace arrangements that had 
been precipitated by the collapse of Germany. The Do- 
minion relation to the preparation of the Peace Treaty was an 
even greater departure from time-honored practice than the 
calling of an Imperial War Cabinet. Never before had a 
Dominion shared in the arrangement of an international 
peace. 

With the calling of the Peace Conference the Dominions 
asked for and obtained the right of separate representation in 
addition to that accorded to the British Empire. They were 
counted among the small nations, and, of course, were rep- 
resented as well on the Council of Five where Britain was 
one of the members. Sir Robert Borden was occasionally 
the colleague of Mr. Balfour in the Council of Ten, and he 
also acted as the chairman of the British Empire Delegation 
in the absence of Mr. Lloyd George. The place the Domin- 
ions had obtained was further illustrated when the time came 
to sign the Treaty; it received the signatures of the Domin- 
ions' representatives. Later the Treaty was presented by 
the Prime Ministers to their respective Dominion Parlia- 
ments, where it was ratified after consideration by the Do- 
minion legislatures, just as if they represented distinct na- 
tions. This was not held to indicate disunity in the Empire, 
however, as the ratification was deemed to be that of the 
Crown acting on the advice of the Dominion Government. 
Dominion nationhood received further emphasis when the 
Dominions were granted mandates. In the case of South 
Africa, General Smuts declared that the mandate was ac- 
cepted by the Union directly and not through Great Britain. 

Aside from the Canadian expression of the "new status/' 
General Smuts has given the most decided interpretation to 
the position achieved by the Dominions. In the discussion 



472 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

in the South African Parliament arising out of the ratification 
of the Treaty, he declared the British Empire to be " a league 
of free states, free, equal and working together for the great 
ideals of human government." This did not mean any 
longer simply internal responsible government: "We have 
received a position of absolute equality, not only among the 
states of the Empire, but among the other nations of the 
world." The amazing character of this change he elaborated 
in many speeches at home and abroad, stressing the fact that 
the Empire which existed on August 4, 1914, had ceased to be 
on June 28, 1919, for it had been subjected to a fundamental 
change. 

The further growth of the British Commonwealth Consti- 
tution will prove of great importance. Already Canada has 
shown a desire to have its own representative in Washing- 
ton, and Australia has announced its intention of doing like- 
wise. An Imperial Council has been proposed as a means of 
preserving unity. Another possible solution would be the 
admission of Dominion representatives to the London Parlia- 
ment to vote on imperial matters. The more radical sugges- 
tion of federation, which was much talked of a generation 
ago, has made little progress. The federalizing of the Em- 
pire — that is, the formation of an Imperial Cabinet and 
Parliament, Great Britain retaining its own Parliament for 
its own purposes — has been viewed in the Dominions as a 
"Downing Street conspiracy" to deprive the outlying por- 
tions of the Empire of their individuality. General Smuts 
thus states what appears to be the prevalent opinion in the 
self-governing colonies: "We favor the round table or confer- 
ence system for discussion and consultation between the gov- 
ernments in regard to common interests." 

During the summer months of 1921 another meeting of the 
Imperial Conference or Cabinet met in London, and was of 
outstanding importance, as it registered for the first time dur- 
ing a period of peace the changes that had been wrought out 
in the crucible of war. Foreign policy was widely discussed 
and means considered for keeping the Dominions in contin- 
uous touch with the conduct of foreign affairs. The Domin- 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 473 

ion Premiers even met with the British Cabinet for the dis- 
cussion of external matters. It was significant that internal 
imperial affairs not directly Dominion concerns were on the 
agenda. Imperial defense, the air service, and communica- 
tions naturally occupied a large place. The vital matter of 
communication was connected with an important decision 
regarding the proposed Constitutional Conference, which had 
been scheduled to meet in 1922. The Imperial Conference 
came to the conclusion that " continuous consultation" can 
be secured only by a substantial improvement in the use of 
the air for transit and communication. It was felt that the 
Dominion Premiers should aim to meet annually, but the 
difficulty of doing this was recognized, and it was decided 
that no advantage was to be gained by holding the pro- 
posed Constitutional Conference. This is not to be inter- 
preted as a disregard of the changes wrought by the war or 
as a recognition of growing separatism, for the Address to the 
King declared it a " unanimous conviction that the most 
essential of the links that bind our widely spread peoples is 
the Crown, and it is our determination that no changes in our 
status as peoples or as Governments shall weaken our com- 
mon allegiance to the Empire and its Sovereign." * 

In November, 1921, the Disarmament Conference began 
its meetings in Washington. President Harding's invitation 
to the British Empire to participate in the Conference came 
to London while the Imperial Conference was still in session. 
It gave the opportunity to the Dominion representatives to 
express their very keen interest in the Conference and in an 
understanding with the United States regarding armaments. 
Premier Hughes of Australia declared that the people of the 
Commonwealth had a very warm corner in their hearts for 
America: "They see in America to-day," he said, "what they 

1 The "Crown" has been active in recent years in the endeavor to unify the 
Empire. The Duke of Connaught served as the Governor-General of Canada 
from 1911 to 1916. He went to India in 1921 to open the new legislature cre- 
ated by the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. His son, Prince Arthur of Con- 
naught, became Governor-General of the Union of South Africa in 1920. The 
Prince of Wales won considerable popularity by a tour of the Dominions at the 
close of the World War; in 1921 he visited India at a time of serious stress in 
Anglo-Indian relations. 



474 THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

themselves hope to be in the future. . . . Subject to that de- 
termination which we have to achieve our destiny with each 
other and with Britain, we resemble so many Americas." 
Mr. Smuts stated the attitude of the Dominions even more 
warmly if that were possible: " America is the nation that is 
closest to us in all the human ties. The Dominions look 
upon her as the eldest of them. She left our circle a long time 
ago because of a great historic mistake. I am not sure that a 
wise policy, after the great events through which we have re- 
cently passed, might not repair the effects of that great his- 
toric error, and once more bring America on to lines of general 
cooperation with the British Empire." 

Three of the Dominions, Canada, Australia, and New Zea- 
land possess as keen an interest in Pacific problems as do the 
United States and Japan. It was therefore fitting that these 
three Dominions should have representation on the British 
delegation that met in Washington in November, 1 92 1 . The 
Canadian representative was Sir Robert Borden. Once 
again the nationhood of the Dominions within the Empire 
received recognition. 

Surely the world conflict that began in 1914 has been of no 
little influence on the expansion and government of the Brit- 
ish Empire. The heat of war has made possible the mould- 
ing of an organization that has no counterpart in the world's 
history. If it still seems a loosely coordinated group of 
peoples, in that may rest its unique value. Over a hundred 
years ago, when the thirteen colonies were being lost, the 
great statesman, Edmund Burke declared that the bonds 
joining colony to motherland were to be found in "a close 
affection which grows from common names, from kindred 
blood, similar privileges and equal protection. These are 
the ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of 
iron." Never, in the whole course of British expansion, has 
there been a better example of the relation between colony 
and motherland than the bonds that attach the Dominions 
to Great Britain. Indeed, it may well be that a British 
group of nations is in formation which can enlarge its affec- 
tions to include, for the betterment of mankind, all branches 
of the English-speaking people. 



THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD WAR 475 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Books on imperial problems have been numerous since 1914. Students 
of the imperial constitution are deeply indebted to Professor Keith for his 
Imperial Unity and the Dominions (Oxford, 1916), his summary of Domin- 
ion Home Rule in Practice (Oxford, 1921), and his admirable survey of War 
Government in the Dominions, which appeared in the same year. The latter 
contains a full bibliography. Mention should be made of The Common- 
wealth of Nations (London, 1916), edited by Lionel Curtis, as well as this 
writer's The Problem of the Commonwealth of the same year. Imperial 
federation was advocated by W. B. Worsfold in The Empire on the Anvil 
(London, 1916) . An important consideration of imperial politics is that of 
the Australian H. Duncan Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations, A 
Study of the Past and Future Development (London, 1920), in which the 
necessity for continuous consultation is emphasized. 

Statistics for the present time should be sought in the Colonial Office 
List, the Statesman's Y ear-Book, the Dominion Y ear-Books, and other an- 
nual publications. Parliamentary papers of great value appear constantly 
and are valuable sources for current colonial affairs. These official re- 
ports, "Presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty," are serial- 
ized and are purchasable at reasonable prices. (The "Cd." series has been 
succeeded by the "Cmd." series.) His Majesty's Stationery Office has 
published a series of Handbooks Prepared under the Direction of the Histori- 
cal Section of the Foreign Office, in which territories the world over that 
were of concern at the conclusion of the World War have received careful 
treatment. 

A conspectus of sources of information would be incomplete without 
reference to the more important periodicals bearing on this subject. The 
Round Table is a quarterly review of the politics of the British Common- 
wealth, which began publication ten years ago; its articles frequently reach 
farther back than 1911. The United Empire is the monthly organ of the 
Royal Colonial Institute, and The Landmark that of the English-Speaking 
Union. Commercial matters are the concern of The Empire Review and 
Journal of British Trade as well as of the quarterly Bidletin of the Imperial 
Institute. The Journal of the Parliaments of the Empire, which began in 
1920, is a quarterly digest of the debates and legislation of the Parliaments 
of Great Britain and of the five Dominions. The well-known Contemporary, 
Fortnightly, and Nineteenth Century and After, though of wider range, fre- 
quently have important material on imperial affairs. 



APPENDIX 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

Abbreviations: ap. = appointed; el. - elected; Adv.C = Advisory Council; Cab. - Cabi- 
net- Cr Col = Crown Colony; Dom .= Dominion; E. C. = Executive Council; Exec. Off. = 
Executive Officer; Fed. = Federal; Gov.-Gen. = Governor-General; H.A. = House of Assem- 
bly H C = House of Commons; H.L. = House of Lords; H.R. = House of Representatives; 
High Com = High Commissioner; L.A. = Legislative Assembly; L.C. = Legislative Council; 
par. el. = partially elected; Pol. Res. = Political Resident; Prot. = Protectorate; Resp. govt. 
«= Responsible government; Sen. = Senate. 

Crown Colony Councils are appointed, unless otherwise stated. 



Pol. unit 


Area in sq. mi. 


Population 


Government 


EUROPE 

The United Kingdom 


121,633 


47,307,601 


Resp. govt. H.L., H.C., and 


England 






Cab. 


Wales 








Scotland 








Ireland 






2 self-gov. states. 


Isle of Man 






Self-govt. 


Channel Is. 






Self-govt. 


Gibraltar 


2 


25,367 


Cr. Col. No Councils. 


Malta 


118 


225,000 


Diarchy, transferred subjects 
under a resp. govt. Gov., 
E.C., and el. L.A. 


AMERICA 








The Dominion of Canada 


3,729,665 


8,769,489 


Self-gov. Dom. Gov.-Gen., 


Provinces of 






Sen. and H.C. Each prov- 


Alberta 






ince has a Lieut. -Gov. and 


British Columbia 






prov. pari. N.S. and Que. 


Manitoba 






have L.C. and L.A.; the rest 


New Brunswick 






a single L.A. 


Nova Scotia 








Ontario 








Prince Edward Is. 








Quebec 








Saskatchewan 








Yukon Territory 






Exec. Off. and el. C. 


North-West Territories 






Com. and ap. C. 


Newfoundland and 


42,734 


260,922 


Self-gov. Dom. Gov., E.C., 


Labrador 


120,000 


3,647 


L.C, and H.A. 


Bermuda Is. 


19 


21,869 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C., L.C, 
and el. H.A. 


Bahama Is. 


4,404 


55,944 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C., L.C, 
and el. A. 


Barbados 


166 


171,893 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, L.C., 
and el. H.A. 


Jamaica, including Cayman 


4,620 


905,000 


Cr. Col. Gov., Privy C, and 


Is., Turks and Caicos Is. 






par. el. L.C. 


Leeward Is. 


715 


127,193 


Cr. Col. Five Presidencies 


Antigua 






with Fed. E.C. and par. el, 


• St. Kitts-Nevis 






Fed. L.C. and local coun- 


Dominica 






cils. 


Montserrat 








Virgin Is. 









11 



APPENDIX 







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Dependent 

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and 

Agencies 








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APPENDIX 

The British Empire (continued) 



ill 



Pol. unit 


Area in sq. mi. 


Population 


Government 


Windward Is. 


516 


182,689 


Cr. Colonies. Gov., but no 


Grenada 






federal councils. Each an 


St. Vincent 






ap. L.C. 


St. Lucia 








Grenadines 








Trinidad and Tobago 


1,974 


386,907 


Cr. Col. E.C. and L.C. 


British Guiana 


89,480 


309,000 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, par. el. 
Court of Policy, and par. el. 
Combined Court. 


British Honduras 


8,592 


43,586 


Cr.Col. Gov., E.C, and L.C. 


Falkland Is., including 


7,500 


3,252 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, and L.C. 


South Georgia 








South Shetlands 








South Orkneys 








Grahams Land 








AFRICA 








Southern Africa 








The Union of South Africa 


795,296 


7,150,666 


Self-gov. Dom. Gov.-Gen., 


Provinces of 




(white 


Sen., and H.A. 


Cape of Good Hope 




1,542,161) 


Each province with Admin- 


Natal 






istrator and el. Provincial 


Orange Free State 






Council. 


Transvaal 








South- West African Pro- 


(322,200) 




Mandate. 


tectorate 








Basutoland 


11,716 


406,000 


Cr. Col. High Com. for So. Af. 


Bechuanaland 


275,000 


125,000 


Prot. High Com. for So. Af. 


Rhodesia 


440,000 


1,739,000 


Administered under Br. So. 
Af. Co. High Com. for So. Af., 
assisted by E.C. and par. el. 
L.C. 


Swaziland 


6,678 


100,000 


Cr. Col. High Com. for So. Af. 


Western Africa 








Ascension I. 


34 


250 


Cr. Col. Commandant. 


St. Helena and Tristan da 


47 


3,500 


Cr. Col. Gov. 


Cunha 








Gambia 


4,134 


248,000 


Cr. Col. and Prot. Gov., E.C, 
and L.C. 


Sierra Leone 


31,000 


1,404,000 


Cr. Col. and Prot. Gov., E.C, 
and L.C. 


Gold Coast 


80,000 


1,503,386 


Cr. Col. and Prot. Gov., E.C, 
and L.C. 


Nigeria 


332,000 


17,500,000 


Cr. Col. and Prot. Gov. and 
E.C. 


Togoland, Part of 


12,500 


300,000 


Mandate. 


Cameroons, Part of 


30,000 


400,000 


Mandate. 


Eastern Africa 








Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 


1,014,000 


4,000,000 


Under joint administration 
of Great Britain and Egypt. 
Gov.-Gen. & E.C. 


Egypt * 


350,000 


12,878,000 


Protectorate. (1914-1922.) 


Kenya 


246,822 


3,000,000 


Cr. Col. and Prot. Gov., par. 
el. L.C. 


Mauritius and 


809 


365,000 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, and par. 


island dependencies 






el. C. of Govt. 


Nyasaland 


39,573 


1,203,000 


Protectorate. 


Seychelles Is. and 


156 


25,000 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, and L.C 


dependencies 








British Somaliland 


68,000 


300,000 


Protectorate. 


Tanganyika Territory 


384,000 


4,000,000 


Mandate. 



* Egypt became an independent kingdom, 28 Feb., 1922. 



IV 



APPENDIX 



Isle of Mao and 
Chancel Is." 



Europe 




Asia 



INDIAN EMPIE 
PM1Ksh: = india: . - HHHlfiH! 



::::::::::: NATIVE:: 



isaiATESi: 



..,,,., ;.. ; 



:i:agengies:: 



II 



•*-Bo 



Malay;|j|| Hon 
StateaJE] ^^ 



l^iiiif^' 



Hi?" 



* 



-Straits Settlements 



Diagram showing distribution and relative size of populations 
within the Empire 

I I European (white) population 
ES$^ Negro and primitive 
Bi=s3 Asiatic 



APPENDIX 

The British Empire (continued) 



Pol. unit 


Area in sq. mi. 


Population 


Government 


Uganda 


110,300 


3,318,000 


Protectorate. Gov., E.C, and 
L.C. 


Zanzibar and Pemba 


1,020 


200,000 


Prot. High Com. and Br. 
Res. 


ASIA 








The Empire of India 


1,802,657 


319,075,132 


(In Gt. Br.) Sec. of State for 


British India 


(1,093,074) 


(247,138,396) 


India and his Council. 


Fifteen Provinces of 






(In India) Viceroy, E.C, 


Aj mer- Merwara 






Council of State and par. el. 


Andaman & Nicobar Is. 






L.A. 


Assam 








Baluchistan 








Bengal 








Bihar and Orissa 








Bombay 








Burma 






Diarchical system in each of 


Cent. Provs. and Berar 






the fifteen provinces. Gov. or 


Coorg 






Chief Com. and E.C. Par. el. 


Delhi 






L.C. with power in "trans- 


Madras 






ferred" subjects. 


Northwest Frontier Prov. 








Punjab 








United Provs. of Agra and 








Oudh 








Native States and 


(709,583) 


(71,936,736) 


More or less autonomous. 


Agencies 








(about 700 in no.) 








Bahrein Is. 


275 


110,000 


Pol. Res. for Govt, of India. 


Aden, including Perim and 


10,462 


58,000 


Cr. Col. and Prot. Gov. 


Sokotra 








British Borneo 


77,106 


1,000,000 




Br. North Borneo 






Gov. and L.C. for Br. Nor. 
Bor. Co. 


Brunei 






Prot. Br. Resident. 


Sarawak 






Prot. under Eng. Rajah. 


Ceylon 


25,481 


4,758,000 


Cr.Col. Gov., E.C, and par. 
el. L.C. 


Cyprus 


3,584 


315,000 


Cr. Col. High Com., E.C, 
and par. el. L.C. 


Hong Kong 


391 


59S.000 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, L.C. 


Malay States 








Federated Malay States 


27,506 


1,325,000 


Prot. High Com. 


Other Malay States 


23,486 


955,000 


Protectorates. Br. advisers to 
native rulers. 


Mesopotamia (Iraq) 


143,000 


2,850,000 


Mandate. 


Palestine 


9,000 


650,000 


Mandate. 


Straits Settlements and 


1,600 


846,000 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, L.C. 


Cocos Keeling Is. 








Christmas I. 








Labuan I. 








AUSTRALASIA 








The Commonwealth of 








Australia 


2,974,581 


5,436,794 


Self-gov. Horn. Gov. -Gen., 


States of 






Sen., H.R. 


New South Wales 








Queensland 






Each State with Gov., el. 


South Australia 






L.C. (save Queensland) and 


Victoria 






el. L.A. (called H.A. in Tas- 


Western Australia 






mania and So. Aust.). 


Tasmania 








Northern Territory 






Adm. and par. el. Adv. C. 



VI 



APPENDIX 

The British Empire (continued) 



Pol. unit 


Area in sq. mi. 


Population 


Government 


Papua 


90,540 


250,000 


Lieut. -Gov., E.C. and L.C. 


German New Guinea and 


89,500 


350,000 


Mandate. 


adjoining Is. 








The Dominion of New Zea- 








land, including 


103,581 


1,268,270 


Self-gov. Dom. Gov. -Gen., 


Auckland Is. 




(Maoris 


L.C. and H.R. 


Chatham Is. 




50,000) 




Kermadec Is. 








Cook Is., and others 




13,000 




Western Samoa 


1,260 


41,128 


Mandate. 


Fiji Is. 


7,083 


164,000 


Cr. Col. Gov., E.C, and par. 
el. L.C. 


Unattached British Is. 






Under supervision of High 
Com. of West. Pac. 


Tonga or Friendly Is. 


390 


24,000 


Prot. El. L.A. 


Br. Solomon Is. and 


14,800 


150,000 


Prot. 


Santa Cruz Is. 








Gilbert and Ellice Is. 








Colony, including 


226 


30,700 


Cr. Col. 


Fanning I., Union Is., 








Christmas I., Phoenix Is. 








New Hebrides 


5,100 


70,000 


Condominium with France. 
Prot. Res. Com. 


Starbuck I. and various 


40 


200 


Protectorates. 


others near the equator 








Pitcairn I. and adjoining Is. 


10 


150 


Prot. Pres. and C. 


Nauru I. 


20 


1,200 


Mandate (guano). 


Total Area of Empire 


13,671,902 






Total Population of Empire 




459,307,735 





INDEX 



Abbas Hilmi, Egyptian Khedive, 355. 

Aborigines, of Australia, 240; of New 
Zealand, 253; of South Africa, 261-63; 
of Tasmania, 244 ; treatment of, under 
new colonial system, 283. See also In- 
dians. 

Abyssinia, 294. 

Acadia, acquired by Great Britain, 82; 
deportation of French inhabitants of, 
86. See also Nova Scotia. 

Achin, King of, visited by Capt. Lancas- 
ter, 63. 

Adelaide, founding of, 173, 248. 

Aden, capture of, by Portuguese, 19, 56; 
formerly under Indian Government, 
308; a valuable British port, 339. 

Afghanistan, conquest of, by Nadir 
Shah, 178; physical character of, 201; 
evacuation of, by British, 202-03; 
growing British interest in , 305 ; British 
invasion of, in 1878, 305 ; further Anglo- 
Russian rivalry in, 306 ; Anglo-Russian 
Agreement of 1907 regarding, 306-07; 
treaty of, with Great Britain in 1921, 
307 ; political relation of, to the British 
Empire, 442. 

Africa, coast of, explored by Portuguese, 
17-18; opening up of, 290; expansion 
of British Empire in, 296. 

Africa, British East, acquisition of, 432. 
See also Kenya Colony. 

Africa, West, early British interest in, 70; 
attack on French, by British, 88. See 
also Gambia, Gold Coast, Lagos, Ni- 
geria, Sierra Leone. 

Afrikander Bond, organization of, 363; 
under leadership of Hofmeyer, 366. 

Aga Khan, Indian political leader, 311; 
quoted on political conditions, 314. 

Agra, visit to, by Captain Hawkins, 64. 

Agriculture, importance of, in Canada, 
416; extent of, in India, 315; in James- 
town, 40. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 85. 

Akbar the Great, Mogul Emperor, 90-91. 

Alaska, acquisition of, by the United 
States, 407; boundary dispute, 420. 

Albany, Dutch factory at, 67 ; conference 
with Iroquois at, 80. 

Albuquerque, obtains control of Aden, 
339. 

Alexander VI, Pope, confirms Spanish 
Empire by bull, 22. 

Alfred the Great, 3. 

Algeria, acquisition of, by France, 289. 



Ali Brothers, leaders of Khalifate cru- 
sade, 462. 

All Moslem League, of India, 311. 

Allan, Sir Hugh, 408-09. 

Allenby, Lord, British High Commis- 
sioner in Egypt, 465. 

Amboina, capture of, by Dutch, 59; 
massacre of, 64-65; capture of, by 
British, 157. 

American Colonies, see under names of 
colonies. 

American Revolution, 75, 115-30; proph- 
ecies regarding, 116-17; causes of, 117- 
21; effects of, 127-30; and Canada, 
217-19. 

Amherst, Earl, Governor-General of In- 
dia, 191. 

Amherst, General, 87. 

Amiens, Peace of, 148, 150, 157; and 
South Africa, 266; and Malacca, 327. 

Amritsar, Massacre of, 462. 

Andaman Islands, assassination of Lord 
Mayo in, 303; controlled by British, 
308; Indian penal settlement in, 327. 

Andros, Edmund, Governor of New Eng- 
land, 109. 

Angevin Empire of Henry II, 5. 

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, see Sudan. 

Anglo-French Agreement of 1899, 296. 

Anglo-French Conservative Party in 
Canada, 404. 

Annual Register, quoted, 115. 

Anson, Admiral, 85. 

Antigua, settlement of, 50. 

Arabi Pasha, revolt of, in Egypt, 347. 

Arabian Peninsula, interest of British in, 
339-40. 

Arcot, Nawab of, 93; capture of, by 
Clive, 94. 

Arkwright, inventor of water-frame, 
138. 

Armada, defeat of, 27, 32-33 ; Hawkins's 
share in defeat of, 31. 

Armed Neutrality of 1780, 125. 

Arnold, Benedict, 217. 

Aroostook War, 418. 

Arthur, Col. George, Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor of Tasmania, 243. 

Asiento, grant of, to Great Britain, 82; 
renewal of, 85. 

Assam, granted to Great Britain, 191. 

Assaye, battle of, 189. 

Assembly, in Virginia, of 1619, 41; of 
1627, 41. 

Association, Isle of, see Tortuga. 



Vlll 



INDEX 



Auckland, establishment of, 254. 

Auckland, Lord, Governor-General of 
India, 200; recall of, 203. 

Aurungzeb, Mogul Emperor, 91. 

Australia, effect of American Revolution 
on colonization of, 128; reasons for de- 
layed interest in, 235; early voyages 
to, 236-39; visited by Captain Cook, 
238 ; first colonizing expedition to, 239 ; 
aborigines of, 240; exploration of east- 
ern interior of, 242-43; evolution of 
early government in, 249-50; compul- 
sory land sales in, 173; rush of gold 
seekers to, 250-52; grant of self-gov- 
ernment to, 285, 384-86; exploration 
of interior of, 386-89 ; growth of democ- 
racy in colonies of, 389-92 ; movement 
for federation in, 392-93; Common- 
wealth constitution of, 394-95; federal 
capital of, 396; party system in, 396; 
character of population of, 396; and 
the Pacific islands, 397-99 ; interest of, 
in defense, 444; share of, in World War, 
450; politics of, during World War, 
458. See also under names of states. 

Australian Colonies Government Act, 
385. 

Austrian Succession, War of, 74, 84-85. 

Ava, King of, defeated by British, 191. 

Babar, Mogul Emperor, 90, 178. 

Baffin, William, search of, for northwest 
passage, 47; Smith's Sound named by, 
62. 

Bahamas, settlement of, 50; government 
of, 439. 

Bahrein Islands, relation of, to British 
Empire, 340. 

Baker, Sir Samuel, in the Sudan, 350. 

Balasor, English factory at, 65. 

Balboa, discovery of Pacific by, 23. 

Balfour, Arthur James, interest of, in 
imperial defense, 446; declaration of, 
regarding Palestine, 456 ; on Council of 
Ten, 471. 

Ballance, John, 380. 

Ballarat, discovery of gold at, 251. 

Ballot, adoption of, in Victoria, 390. 

Baltimore, Baron, 69. 

Baluchistan, growth of British power in, 
305. 

Banda Islands, Anglo-Dutch rivalry in, 
64, 157. 

Banks, Joseph, report on Botany Bay by, 
239; suggests transportation to Aus- 
tralia, 239. 

Bantam, English factory at, 63. 

Bantu, character of, 262. 

Baptist Missionary Society, 282 n. 

Barbados, settlement of, 50; rapidity of 
early development of, 50-51; govern- 
ment of, 439. 



Barbary or Morocco Company, establish- 
ment of, 13. 

Baring, Sir Evelyn, see Lord Cromer. 

Baroda, Gaekwar of, 189 ; dethronement 
of, 304. 

Bass, George, Australian explorer, 241. 

Bass Strait, discovery of, 241. 

Bassein, 189. 

Basutoland, acquisition of, 276, 359. 

Batavia, founding of, 59. 

Bathurst Plains, discovery of, 242. 

Batman, John, pioneer in Victoria, 244. 

Baudin, Capt., French explorer, 241. 

Bechuanaland, acquisition of, 293, 365; 
a protectorate, 440. 

Bechuanas, Bantu tribe, 263. 

Bedford, Duke of, quoted, 116. 

Begums, the, of Oudh, 184. 

Belle Isle, naval battle of, 85. 

Benares, annexed to Bengal, 183. 

Bengal, early English interest in, 65; 
nominally under Mogul, 178; collec- 
tion of revenues of, 181; permanent 
revenue settlement of, 186. 

Bentham, Jeremy, Emancipate Your 
Colonies of, quoted, 134; convert to 
systematic colonization, 172. 

Bentinck, Lord William, quoted on Brit- 
ish aims in India, 194-95; Governor- 
General of India, 196; retirement of, 
199. 

Berar, Raja of, 188. 

Bering Sea, controversy over fur seal 
fisheries in, 421. 

Berkeley, Lord, 69. 

Berlin, colonial conference of 1884-85, 
291; decree of Napoleon, 152. 

Bermudas, discovery of the, 48; govern- 
ment of the, 439. 

Bermudez, Juan, Spanish explorer, 50 n. 

Berry, Graham, 390. 

Beyers, General, of South Africa, 460. 

Bezuidenhout, accusation of, 269. 

Bhonsla, Raja of Berar, 188. 

Bhutan, relation of, to British India, 
308, 442. 

Bikaner, Maharaja of, at Peace Confer- 
ence of 1919, 310 n. 

Bismarck, attitude of, toward coloniza- 
tion, 292-93. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, 94-95. 

Black Wednesday, in Victoria, 390. 

Blake, Admiral, 67. 

Blaxland, Australian explorer, 242. 

Bloemfontein Convention of 1854, 273. 

Board of Trade, organization of, 109; 
duties of, 110; abolition of, 110; and 
Dominions, 436. 

Boer War, see South African War. 

Boers, settlement of, 261; exclusiveness 
of, 358. See also Transvaal and Orange 
Free State. 



INDEX 



IX 



Bolan Pass, 201, 202. 

Bombay, cession of, by Portugal, 65; 
grant of, to East India Company, 65, 
340; presidency of west coast at, 65; 
Presidency of, formed from Maratha 
territory, 191. 

Bonaparte, see Napoleon. 

Bond, Sir Robert, of Newfoundland, 
426. 

Boomplaats, battle of, 271. 

Borden, Sir Robert, Prime Minister of 
Canada, 412, 458; and imperial de- 
fense, 446; quoted on importance of 
Imperial Cabinet, 470; at Peace Con- 
ference of 1919, 471; at Washington 
Conference, 474. 

Borneo, 297, 331-33. 

Boscawen, Admiral, 87, 88. 

Boston, port of closed, 124; riot in, 124; 
Tea Party, 124, 182. 

Botany Bay, 238-39. 

Botha, Gen. Louis, Prime Minister of 
Transvaal, 372; member of National 
Convention, 373; Prime Minister of 
Union, 374; during World War, 450, 
459; death of, 461. 

Bourassa, Henri, anti-English attitude of, 
415, 459. 

Bourbon, He de, 78, 157. 

Bourne, E. G., Spain in America of, 
quoted, 18. 

Boutros Pasha, murder of, 355. 

Bowell, Mackenzie, of Manitoba, 413. 

Braddock, General, 87. 

Brand, J. H., President of Orange Free 
State, 273, 358. 

Brant, Joseph, 220. 

Brazil, becomes Portuguese, 23; British 
trade with, after 1713, 83. 

Breda, Treaty of, 68. 

Brethren of the Coast, see Buccaneers. 

Briand, Mgr., 213. 

Bridgewater Canal, 140. 

Brisbane, settlement of, 245. 

British Columbia, becomes Crown Col- 
ony, 406; includes Vancouver Island, 
406; demands railway connection with 
Canada, 403; joins Dominion of Can- 
ada, 406; impatient over railway de- 
lay, 409. 

British Guiana, acquisition of, 430; gov- 
ernment of, 439. 

British Honduras, 440. 

British Isles, unification of, 4. 

British North America Act, 232. 

British North Borneo Company, 333 
441. 

British Somaliland, see Somaliland. 

British South Africa Company, 365, 
441-42. 

Brock, General, 223, 

Brook, Lord, 44. 



Brooke, Sir Charles J., of Sarawak, 333. 

Brooke, Charles Vyner, of Sarawak, 333. 

Brooke, James; of Sarawak, 332. 

Brown, George, leader of Canadian Radi- 
cals, 230; joins coalition, 230; member 
of Quebec Convention, 231; goes to 
London, 231 ; opposes Macdonald, 404. 

Brunei, 332-33. 

Brussels, colonial conference at, 291. 

Buccaneers of West Indies, 52-54. 

Buenos Aires, capture of, by British, 157, 

Buller, Charles, quoted on colonial pat- 
ronage, 161-62; member of Durham 
Mission, 171, 226; his Responsible 
Government for Colonies, 172; quoted 
on public opinion of colonies, 174; 
quoted on importance of Durham Re- 
port, 227. 

Buller, General, 371. 

Burgers, T. F., President of Transvaal, 
358, 361. 

Burgoyne, General, surrender of, at Sara- 
toga, 125, 218; attacks Clive in Parlia- 
ment, 181. 

Burke, Edmund opposes French Revolu- 
tion, 147; prosecutes Hastings, 185. 

Burma, first war with, 191; second war 
with, 205-06 ; lower, annexed, 206 ; up- 
per, annexed, 296, 305. 

Bushmen, character of, 261. 

Button, Sir Thomas, explorer, 47. 

Byng, Admiral, defeat of, 87; courtmar- 
tial of, 341. 

Cable, Pacific, 444. 

Cabot, John, voyages to America, 14, 20. 

Cabot, Sebastian, maritime activity of, 
20, 29. 

Caisse de la Dette, 346. 

Calais, staple at, 12. 

Calcutta, establishment of, 66; capture 
of, by Suraj-ud-daulah, 95; defense of, 
against Marathas, 179 n. 

Calico Act of 1721, 102-03. 

Calicut, 15, 18, 320. 

Calvert, Cecilius, 69. 

Calvert, George, 69. 

Cameroons, acquired by Germany, 293; 
mandate of, to Great Britain and 
France, 454. 

Campbell, Alexander, of Canada, 231. 

Campbell, Sir Colin, relieves Lucknow, 
210. 

Camperdown, naval battle off, 149. 

Canada, acquired by Great Britain, 96; 
probable loss of, affirmed, 165; emigra- 
tion to, 168-69; invasion of, 217; un- 
satisfactory government of, in 1786, 
220-21 ; Act of 1791, 221-22; Rebellion 
of 1837, 223-25, 421 ; and War of 1812, 
223 ; Durham Mission to, 227 ; reunion 
of provinces of, in 1840, 228; confeder- 



X 



INDEX 



ation movement in, 229-32; condition 
of, in 1867, 233; first self-governing 
Dominion, 232; confederation of, 401; 
government of, 401-03; purchases 
Hudson's Bay territories, 408; provin- 
cial problems of, 413-15; expansion of, 
415-16; population of, 415-16; to-day, 
415-18; election of 1921, 417; and the 
United States, 418-22; participation 
of, in World War, 450; politics of, dur- 
ing World War, 458-59. See also Que- 
bec. 

Canadian Pacific Railway, plan to build, 
406; delay in construction of, 408-09; 
completion of, 410; service of, to Can- 
ada, 418. 

Canals, in England, 140. 

Canberra, federal capital of Australia, 
396. 

Canning, Charles J., Governor-General 
of India, 210, 302. 

Canning, George, and Monroe Doctrine, 
156. 

Canterbury Association, 2£6. 

Canton, 334. 

Cape Colony, foundation of, by Dutch, 
60; capture of, by British, 157; recap- 
tured, 266; ceded to Great Britain, 
158; early growth of, 274-77; receives 
constitution, 275; becomes self-govern- 
ing, 275, 285; expansion of, 276; popula- 
tion of, in 1870, 277; Sir Bartle Frere, 
Governor of, 360; nationalist senti- 
ment in, 363; Cecil Rhodes, Premier 
of, 367. See also Cape of Good Hope. 

Cape Finisterre, naval battle of, 85. 

Cape of Good Hope, discovered by Por- 
tuguese, 18; emigration to, 168-69; 
named, 259. See also Cape Colony. 

Cape St. Vincent, naval battle of, 149. 

Cape Town, settlement of, 260-61 ; ques- 
tion of capital at, 275. 

Capitalism, rise of industrial, 142-45. 

Capitulations, the, with Turkey, 354, 
465. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, early life of, 214; 
Governor of Quebec, 214; Comman- 
der-in-Chief in America, 218; resigns 
governorship, 218; Governor a second 
time, 220. 

Carleton, Thomas, Governor of New 
Brunswick, 219. 

Carlisle, Earl of, grants to, in West In- 
dies, 50. 

Carnarvon, Lord, desires South African 
confederation, 360. 

Carolinas, settlement of, 69. 

Carpentaria, Gulf of, 387. 

Carteret, Sir George, 69. 

Cartier, George E., Canadian states- 
man, 229; champions Quebec province, 
230; joins coalition, 230; member of 



Quebec Convention, 231; in first cabi- 
net of Dominion, 403. 

Cartier, Jacques, French explorer, 76. 

Cartwright, Edmund, inventor of power- 
loom, 138. 

Catherine of Braganza, 36, 65, 340. 

Cawnpore, massacre of, 209. 

Cetewayo, Zulu chieftain, 361. 

Ceylon, captured by Dutch, 60, 326; 
captured by British, 157, 326; ceded 
to Great Britain, 158; Wilmot Horton, 
Governor of, 169; political unrest in, 
326; government of, 439. 

Chait Singh, raja of Benares, 184. 

Chaleurs, Bay of, 405. 

Chamberlain, Joseph, Colonial Secre- 
tary, 369, 444-45; quoted on Austral- 
ian confederation, 394. 

Champlain, Samuel de, 76. 

Chancellor, expedition of, to Russia, 29. 

Chandernagore, French factory at, 79; 
Dupleix at, 92; captured by Clive, 95. 

Channel Islands, 435. 

Charles I, 36, 41. 

Charles II, married Catherine of Bra- 
ganza, 36, 65, 340; grants Bombay to 
East India Company, 340. 

Charleston, foundation of, 69. 

Charlotte town, Conference at, 231. 

Chartered Companies, 441-42. 

Chatham, Lord, see Pitt, William, the el- 
der. 

Chauth, Maratha blackmail, 179. 

Chelmsford, Lord, Viceroy of India, 313. 

Child, Sir Josiah, The Nature of Planta- 
tions of, quoted, 101 ; quoted on New 
England, 104. 

Chilianwala, battle of, 205. 

China, trade of, 60; British sphere of in- 
fluence in, 442. 

Choiseul, on American colonies, 117. 

Christchurch, settlement of, 256. 

Christian Guardian, 225. 

Church Missionary Society, 253, 282 n. 

Cinque Ports, 25 and n. 

Clear Grits, Canadian Radicals, 230. 

Clergy reserves, grant of, 221; opposition 
to, 225. 

Clive, Robert, goes to India, 93; captures 
Arcot, 94; booty obtained by, 180; 
Governor of Bengal, 181 ; criticism of 
181; commits suicide, 181. 

Cloth manufacture, see textile industry. 

Coal, importance of, in Industrial Revo- 
lution, 139; discovery of, in New South 
Wales, 240-41. 

Cochin China, 289. 

Colbert, French statesman, 78. 

Colbertism, see Mercantilism. 

Colley, Sir George, 362. 

Collins, Capt., in Tasmania, 243. 

Collins, Michael, Irish leader, 468. 



INDEX 



XI 



Colonial Conferences, early, 297-98, 442- 
47; of 1887, 297, 443-44; of 1894, 444; 
of 1897, 298, 444-45; of 1902, 298, 445; 
of 1907, 445; of 1911, 445-46; results, 
of, before 1914, 447; of 1917, 469; of 
1921, 472-73. 
Colonial empire, of France, 150-51, 289; 
of Great Britain, review of growth of, 
428-33; of government of, 433-42; 
summary of population of, 433 ; of Hol- 
land, 56-60; of Russia, 289-90. 

Colonial expansion, during period of 
British monopoly, 281. 

Colonial Office, sphere of, 438. 

Colonial system, of Spain, 28. 

Colonies, British, lack of interest in, af- 
ter Napoleonic wars, 160; value of, 
questioned, 161-66; expense of, 161; 
revival of interest in, 174-75, 279-88; 
ignorance of, in Great Britain, in early 
nineteenth century, 280 n ; political re- 
lation of, to Great Britain before 1854, 
438 n. 

Colonization, systematic, see Systematic 
colonization. 

Columbus, Bartholomew, visits England, 
20. 

Columbus, Christopher, 19, 22-23. 

Commerce, of England in Middle Ages, 
10-12; of Europe with Far East, 15- 
19; concessions regarding, made to 
England, 82-83; increase of British, in 
eighteenth century, 99; British, with 
France in eighteenth century, 100; illi- 
cit, of American colonies, 107, 123; of 
American colonies, 118-19; growth of 
British, during Napoleonic wars, 151- 
55; expansion of British, after 1750, 
143. See also Trade. 

Commerical system, influence of Adam 
Smith on, 132. 

Commission of Lord Durham, see Dur- 
ham Commission. 

Commonwealth, England under the, 36; 
and Virginia, 41. 

Concord, battle of, 125. 

Confederation, of New England, 45; 
movement for in Canada, 229-32. 
See also Federation. 

Conferences, Colonial, see Colonial Con- 
ferences. 

Congo Free State, 291. 

Congress, intercolonial, in American col- 
onies, 80, 121; Albany, of 1754, 121; 
American Continental, of 1774 and 
1775, 124; Stamp Act Congress, see 
Stamp Act Congress. 

Connaught, Duke of, and Indian unrest, 
463. 

Connecticut, settlement of, 44. 

Conscription, failure to obtain, in Aus- 
tralia, 458; in Canada, 459. 



Continental Congress of 1774, of 1775, 

124. 
Continental system, of Napoleon, 151- 

55. 
Convicts, in New South Wales, 240; in 

Tasmania, 243; in Western Australia, 

246-47. 
Cook Islands, 383, 399, 453. 
Cook, Capt. James, 238. 
Coolgardie, 388. 
Coote, Sir Eyre, victor at Wandewash, 

94; in First Mysore War, 184. 
Copper mines, in South Australia, 249. 
Cornwallis, Lord, in American Revolu- 
tion, 126; Governor of India, 186-87. 
Coronado, Spanish explorer. 24. 
Cortez, conquest of Mexico by, 24. 
Corvee, in Egypt, 348. 
Cotton, importance of Egyptian, 353. 
Cotton gin, 138. 

Cotton manufacture, see Textile indus- 
try. 
Craft gilds, see Gilds, craft. 
Craig, Sir James, Governor of Canada, 

222. 
Crimean War, 202. 
Crispi, Italian statesman, 294. 
Cromer, Lord, work of, in Egypt, 348- 

49. 
Crompton, Samuel, inventor of "mule," 

138. 
Cromwell, rule of, 36. 
Crown Colonies, government of, 438-40 ; 

higher type of, 439-40; lower type of, 

440. 
Cunard, Sir Samuel, 141. 
Curtis, Lionel, 373. 
Curzon, Lord, Viceroy of India, 306. 
Cyprus, Turkish conquest of, 17; British 

acquisition of, 287, 343; government 

of, 439. 

Dacoity, 197, 208. 

Da Gama, see Vasco da Gama. 

Dail Eireann, 466, 468. 

Dalhousie, Lord, Governor-General of 
India, 204; his Doctrine of Lapse, 206; 
administration of, 207-08. 

Dane, Sir Lewis, mission of, to Kabul, 
306. 

Danelaw, the, 3. 

Danes, invasion of Britain by, 3. 

Darwin, Australia, 388-89. 

Da Vaca, Spanish explorer, 24. 

D'Avenant, Charles, On the Plantation 
Trade, cited, 101; quoted on West In- 
dies, 103 n. 

Davis, John, Arctic explorer, 46. 

De Beers Mining Corporation, 366. 

De Bussy, French leader in Deccan, 94. 

Deccan, loss of, by Mogul Empire, 178. 

Declaration of Right, 37. 



Xll 



INDEX 



Declaratory Act of 1766, 123. 

Deerfield, Conn., capture of, 80-81 and 
81 n. 

Defense, colonial, 286, 298 and n., 446. 

De la Rey, General, 460. 

De Lesseps, Ferdinand, 338. 

Delhi, capital of Mogul Empire, 178; 
capture of, by Nadir Shah, 179; during 
Indian Mutiny, 209-10. 

Demarcation Line, between Spanish and 
Portuguese empires, 23. 

De Ruyter, Dutch admiral, 68. 

De Soto, Spanish explorer, 24. 

De Valera, Eamon, of Ireland, 466-68. 

De Villiers, Sir J. H., of Cape Colony, 
373. 

De Wet, Christian, of Orange Free State, 
372. 

De Wet, General, rebel leader in South 
Africa, 460. 

Diamond Jubliee, 280. 

Diamonds, discovery of, at Kimberley, 
359. 

Diarchical system, in India, 313; in 
Malta, 439-40. 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 18, 259. 

Dilke, Sir Charles, journeys and publi- 
cations of, 287 ; quoted on imperial de- 
fense, 298 n. 

Dingaan, Zulu Chieftain, 271. 

Dirk Hartog, 236. 

Disallowance, royal, 110. 

Disarmament Conference of 1921, 473. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, satirizes colonial 
burden, 162; imperial interests of, 287, 
360 ; purchases Suez Canal shares, 338, 
346. 

Diwani (revenue collection), of Bengal, 
181. 

Dobbs Mission, to Afghanistan, 307. 

Doctrine of Lapse, 206, 302, 304. 

Doherty, C. J., quoted on Dominion 
status, 469. 

Domestic system of cloth manufacture, 
136. 

Dominion of Canada, see Canada. 

Dominions, self-governing, ties that bind 
the, to Great Britain, 436-37 ; response 
of, in World War, 449-51 ; recognition 
of status of, in Irish Treaty, 467 ; poli- 
tical status of, since 1914, 468-74; at 
the Peace Conference, 471; present 
position of, 472. 

Dongan, Governor, 80. 

Dorchester, Lord, see Carleton, Sir Guy. 

Dost Mohammed, 201. 

Dover, Treaty of, 74. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 30-32. 

Dual Control in Egypt, 347. 

Dufferin, Lord, Viceroy of Indi; , 305. 

Duncan, Admiral, 149. 

Dunedin, settlement of, 255. 



Dupleix, Joseph, French leader in India, 
92, 180 n. 

Duquesne, Fort, 87. 

Duquesne : Marquis, 87. 

Durand Agreement, regarding Afghanis- 
tan, 306. 

Durban, settlement of, 277. 

Durham Commission, to Canada, 225- 
27. 

Durham, Lord, sent to Canada, 225; 
founds colonization society, 254; 
death of, 227. 

Dutch, trade of, with the East, 60; early 
explorations of, in the East, 236; in- 
terest of, in South Africa, 260 ; forma- 
tion of colonial empire of, 321; and 
Malacca, 327. 

Dutch Guiana, grant of part of, to Great 
Britain, 158. 

Dutch War, the first, 67; the second, 68. 

Dutch West India Company, 45, 66. 

Dutt, Romesh, Indian political leader, 
312. 

Dyer, General, 462. 

East, the Far, see the Indies. 

East India Company, Dutch, employs 
Hudson, 47; founded, 59; use of South 
Africa by, 260; decline of, 264. 

East India Company, English, founding 
of, 13; interest of, in northwest pas- 
sage, 46 n ; early years of, 62-66 ; charter 
of, 61-62 ; early voyages for, 63 ; addi- 
tional charter of 1693 for, 111; exten- 
sion of its privileges in 1 733 , 1 1 1 ; Regu- 
lation Act of 1768, 112; Lord North's 
Regulation Act, 112, 124, 182-83; 
Fox's India Bill, 112, 185; Pitt's India 
Act, 112, 185; financial corruption in, 
180; finances of, in 1805, 190; revision 
of charter of, in 1833, 198-99; aboli- 
tion of, 210, 302; grant of Bombay to, 
340; acquires Ormuz, 339; and the 
China trade, 328, 334; interest of, in 
Borneo, 331; obtains St. Helena, 323. 

East India Company, French, founding 
of, 78. 

Easter Rebellion, in Ireland, 466. 

Eastern Townships, Loyalists in, 220. 

Edinburgh Review, quoted, 164. 

Education, in India, 198, 317-18; in 
Canada, 413. 

Edward I, 5, 7. 

Edward II, 5. 

Edward III, 6-7. 

Edward VI, 25. 

Edward VII, 312. 

Egbert, King of Wessex, 3. 

Egypt, conquest of, by Turks, 17; begin- 
ning of British interest in, 287; British 
occupation of, 344-49; Anglo-British 
Dual Control of, 347; British accom- 



INDEX 



Xlll 



plishments in, 348-49; finances of, 
349; population of, 353; declaration of 
British protectorate over, 354; army 
of, 354; government of, in 1913, 354; 
value of, to Great Britain, 356; during 
World War, 441; unrest in, since 1918, 
464-65; independence of, 441, 465. 

Elgin, Lord, Governor of Canada, 228- 
29; Viceroy of India, 302. 

Elizabeth, Queen, plantation of Ireland 
under, 6; foreign difficulties of, 26; 
and Mary, Queen of Scots, 26-27. 

Ellenborough, Lord, Governor-General 
of India, 203. 

Ellice Islands, 399. 

Elphinstone, Admiral, 266. 

Emancipists, 240. 

Emigration, during Stuart period, 37; to 
Massachusetts, 43; resulting from In- 
dustrial Revolution, 144; advocacy of, 
167; to Canada, 168-69; to Cape of 
Good Hope, 168-69; increase of, 168; 
and Wakefield system, 170-73; and 
Durham Report, 227. See also Immi- 
gration. 

Encounter Bay, 241. 

Enumerated articles in the Navigation 
Acts, 106, 107. 

Eritrea, Italian occupation of, 294. 

Eyre, Edward John, Australian explorer, 
387. 

Factories (trading posts), Portuguese, 
19; English, 63-66; French, in India, 
78-79. 

Factory system, development of, 143. 

Fairs, of Winchester, 12; of Stourbridge, 
12; in Spanish colonies, 28. 

Family Compact, Second, between 
France and Spain, 84. 

Family Compact, government of, in 
Canada, 224-25. 

Famines in India, 316. 

Fanning Island, 398. 

Farming, see Agriculture. 

Fashoda Incident, 296, 352-53. 

Fawkner, pioneer to Victoria, 244. 

Federal Convention, in Australia, 393; in 
Canada, 231. 

Federal Council of Australia, 393. 

Federated Malay States, 331. 

Federation, imperial, advocated, 287; in- 
terest in, 443 ; of Australia, 392-93 ; in 
South Africa, 372. See also Confedera- 
tion. 

Fellaheen, treatment of Egyptian, 348- 
49. 

Fenians, 421. 

Ferry, Jules, French statesman, 289. 

Fiji Islands, annexation of, 397, resi- 
dence of High Commissioner, 399; 
government of, 439. 



Fish River, 263. 

Fisheries, of Newfoundland, 46, 423-25; 
and Americans, 127; of Canada, 420; 
fur seal, in Bering Sea, 421. 

Flanders, emigration of workmen of, to 
England, 4, 12; English commercial in- 
terest in, 12. 

Fleming, Sir Sandford, 405. 

Flinders, explorer in Australasia, 238, 
241. 

Florida, discovery of, 23; ceded to Spain, 
127. 

Foreign policy, relation of colonies to, 
442. 

Forster, Wm. E., advocate of imperial 
federation, 287; and Imperial Federa- 
tion League, 443. 

Fort Frontenac, 87. 

Fort Garry, 406. 

Fort Manhattan, see New Amsterdam. 

Fort Orange, see Albany. 

Fort St. George, see Madras. 

Fort William, see Calcutta. 

Fox, C. J., India Bill of, 112, 185. 

Fox, "Northwest," explorer, 47. 

France, rivalry of, with England, 75; 
joins American colonies, 125; trade 
with, after American Revolution, 134; 
growth of new colonial empire of, 289; 
treaty rights of, in Newfoundland, 
423, 425. 

France, lie de, see Mauritius. 

Franklin, Benjamin, in Canada, 217. 

Franklin, Sir John, Governor of Tas- 
mania, 244. 

Freetown, Sierra Leone, 454 n. 

Free trade, grant of, to Ireland in 1780, 
128; influence of Adam Smith for, 132- 
33; growing interest in, 283. 

Fremantle, founding of, 246. 

French, interest of, in Newfoundland, 
46; establishment of colonial empire, 
76-79. 

French-Canadians, rebellion of, 223-24; 
position of, in Canada, 414. 

French Revolution, 75, 147, 264. 

Frere, Sir Bartle, 288, 303, 360. 

Friendly Islands, see Tonga Islands. 

Frontenac, Count, 80. 

Froude, J. A., 287, 360. 

Fuad I, King of Egypt, 465. 

Fuca's Straits, boundary dispute of, 
419. 

Gaekwar of Baroda, Maratha chieftain, 
189. 

Gait, Sir A. T., member of Quebec Con- 
vention, 231; in first cabinet of the 
Dominion, 404. 

Gambia, English stations at, 70, 454 n; 
acquisition of, 429; expansion of, 432. 

Gamtoos River, 263. 



XIV 



INDEX 



Gandhi, M. K., advocate of non-coopera- 
tion in India, 463; arrest of, 463. 

Gawler, Governor, of South Australia, 248. 

Geelong, founding of, 244. 

General (East India) Company, organ- 
ized, 111. 

George III, royal policy of, 121. 

George, Lloyd, creates War Cabinet, 
469; calls Dominions into Conference, 
469; proposes constitutional confer- 
ence, 469-70. 

Georgia, settlement of, 69. 

German Colonization Society, 293. 

German East Africa, 294. 

Germany, rise of colonial empire of, 292- 
94. 

Ghazni, gates at, 203. 

Gibraltar, capture of, 81, 342; French at- 
tempts to recapture, 82; government 
of, 343, 440. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, and Newfound- 
land, 32, 428; Discourse of a Discovery 
for a New Passage to Cataia, 46. 

Gilbert, Ralegh, member of Virginia 
Company, 38; attempted colonization 
of Maine by, 42. 

Gilbert Islands, 399. 

Gilds, craft, origin of, 11; in London, 11; 
decline of, in England, 11; merchant, 
10. 

Gladstone, W. E., on government of Can- 
ada, 222; and free trade, 283; mission 
of, to Ionian Islands, 342; relation of, 
to disaster at Khartum, 351; Great 
Ministry of, 359; attack of, on Dis- 
raeli's imperialism, 361. 

Glenelg, Lord, opposed to South African 
expansion, 268; characterized, 268 n. 

Goa, a Portuguese outpost, 19; Thomas 
Stevens at, 61. 

Gokhale, G. K., Indian political leader, 
311. 

Gold, search for, in Virginia, 39; discov- 
ery of, in Transvaal, 367; in Western 
Australia, 388. 

Gold Coast, the, English stations on, 70, 
429; expansion of, 432, 454 and n. 

Gold Rush, the, to Australia, 250-52. 

Good Hope, Cape of, see Cape of Good 
Hope. 

"Good Parliament," 7. 

Gordon, General Charles (Chinese) , Gov- 
ernor of the Sudan, 350; death of, 351. 

Gordon, Sir J. W., quoted on colonial ex- 
pense, 161. 

Goree, capture of, by British, 88; re- 
turned to France, 127. 

Gorst, Sir Eldon, Egyptian administra- 
tor, 355. 

Gough, General, 205. 

Graaf Reinet, settlement of, 263; insur- 
rection in, 264, 



Grant, Charles, see Glenelg, Lord. 

Grasse, Comte de, French admiral, 126- 
27. 

Grattan, Henry, 86, 128. 

Gray, Judge, of New Brunswick, 231. 

Greased cartridges, 209. 

Great Banda Island, see Banda Islands. 

Great Britain, government of, 433-34. 

Greene, General, in American Revolu- 
tion, 126. 

Grenada, capture of, by British, 88. 

Grey, third Earl, interest in Wakefield 
system, 172, 285; elected by Victoria to 
the Sydney Council, 245; unwilling to 
annex Orange Free State, 273. 

Grey, Sir George, explorer in Australia, 
248; Governor of South Australia, 
248-49 ; first governorship of New Zea- 
land, 256-57; quoted on character of 
Maoris, 253 ; on government of Trans- 
vaal, 274; Governor of Cape Colony, 
275; advocate of South African federa- 
tion, 276 ; second governorship in New 
Zealand, 3 28; j upholds provincial sys- 
tem in New Zealand, 379; and New 
Zealand Public Works Policy, 380. 

Griffith, Arthur, Irish leader, 468. 

Griqualand West, annexed to Cape Col- 
ony, 276, 359. 

Griquas, assisted by British, 271. 

Guadeloupe, becomes French, 78; cap- 
ture of, by British, 88; returned to 
France, 96; naval battle off, 127; cap- 
ture of, by British (1794), 156. 

Guernsey, Isle of, 435. 

Guiana, capture of Dutch, 156. 

Guilds, see Gilds. 

Guinea Company, 13, 29. 

Gujerat, 189. 

Gujerat (Punjab), battle of, 205. 

Gurkhas, suppression of, 190. 

Haarlem, wreck of, 260. 

Habibullah Khan, 306. 

Haidar Ali, of Mysore, 184. 

Haidarabad, Nizam of, influence of Du- 
pleix over, 93 ; power of, in Deccan, 178. 

Hakluyt, Richard, writings of, 30-31, 33; 
member of Virginia Company, 38; 
advocates retention of Newfoundland, 
45-46. 

Haldimand, General, Governor of Can- 
ada, 218. 

Halifax, foundation of, 87. 

Harburn, William, 13. 

Hardinge, Lord, Governor-General of 
India, 203-04; political unrest during 
administration of, 311. 

Hargraves, E. H., discovers gold in Aus- 
tralia, 250. 

Hargreaves, James, inventor of spinning 
jenny, 137. 



INDEX 



xv 



Harris, Dionysius, at Candia, 14. 

Hastings, Marquess of, Governor-Gen- 
eral of India, 190. 

Hastings, Warren, Governor of Bengal, 
182; charges against, 184; trial and ac- 
quittal of, 185. 

Hat industry, curbing of, in American 
colonies, 104. 

Havana, capture of, by British, 88. 

Havelock, Sir Henry, relieves Lucknow, 
210. 

Hawke, Admiral, victory of, off Belle 
Isle, 85; in Quiberon Bay, 88. 

Hawkins, John, voyages of, 29-31; as- 
sists in defeat of Armada, 31. 

Hawkins, Capt. William, voyage of, to 
Surat, 64. 

Head-hunting, 331-32. 

Hejaz, the, 340, 456. 

Heligoland, seized, 154; ceded, 158, 430. 

Henry I, 4. 

Henry II, 3, 5. 

Henry V, 6. 

Henry VII, 6 ; fosters commerce, 14, 20-2 1 . 

Henry VIII, and Wales, 6; "King of Ire- 
land," 6; and Reformation, 25; foreign 
policy of, 24-25; navy of, 26. 

Henry the Navigator, 18. 

Henry Grace de Dieu, war vessel of Henry 
VIII, 26. 

Herat, 201. 

Hertzog, General, of South Africa, 374, 
459. 

Hicks, Colonel, defeat of, in the Sudan, 
351. 

High Commissioner, of Western Pacific, 
397, 399; of the Dominions, 436. 

Hill, John, 81. 

Hill, Sir Rowland, 172. 

Hobson, Capt., Governor of New Zea- 
land, 254. 

Hoffman, J. P., President of Orange Free 
State, 273. 

Hofmeyer, J. H, of South Africa, 366. 

Hojeda, Spanish explorer, 23. 

Holkar of Indore, Maratha chieftain, 
189. 

Holland, maritime interests of, 56-60; 
recognition of independence of, 60; in- 
terest of, in West, 66; against Great 
Britain during American Revolution, 
125; annexed to Napoleonic Empire, 
153; and French Revolution, 266. 

Holy Land, see Palestine. 

Home Rule, see Ireland. 

Hong Kong, 317, 334. 

Hormuz, see Ormuz. 

Horton, Wilmot, interest of, in emigra- 
tion, 168-69; Governor of Ceylon, 169. 

Hottentots, character of, 262; Cape 
corps of, 267. 

Hovell, Australian explorer, 242. 



Howe, Admiral, 149. 

Howe, Joseph, of Nova Scotia, 231; 
visits London, 404; in Macdonald min- 
istry, 405. 

Howick, Lord, see Grey, third Earl. 

Hudson, Henry, 47. 

Hudson's Bay Company, 13; formation 
of, 47-48; and Lord Selkirk, 167-68; 
sphere of, 403; territory of, 405; op- 
posed to settlement of western Canada, 
407; sale of lands of, to Canada, 408. 

Hughes, W. M., Prime Minister of Aus- 
tralia, 396, 458, 469; quoted on Anglo- 
American relations, 473. 

Hugli, establishment of English factory 
at, 65. 

Hugli River, 179 n. 

Huguenots, migration of, to England, 4; 
settlement of, in South Africa, 263. 

Humanitarianism, in nineteenth century, 
growth of, in England, 166, 281 ; in In- 
dia, 196, 208; in New Zealand, 254, 
256-57; in South Africa, 268. 

Hume, Australian explorer, 242. 

Hume, Joseph, 225. 

Hundred Years' War, the, 74. 

Hunter, Sir William, quoted, 204. 

Huskisson, William, 283. 

Hussein Kamil, Sultan of Egypt, 355. 

Hutchinson, Anne, 44. 

Hyderabad, see Haidarabad. 

Immigration, to South Africa, 267; en- 
couragement of, by Australia, 391; by 
New Zealand, 380; hindrances of 
Oriental, to Australia, 392; to Canada, 
416. See also Emigration. 

Imperial British East African Company, 
441. 

Imperial Conference, of 1921, 472-73. 
See also Colonial Conferences. 

Imperial Defense, Committee of, 446. 

Imperial Federation League, activity of, 
443. 

Imperial Service Troops, 306, 310. 

Imperial War Cabinet, first meeting, 
469-70; second meeting, 470-71. 

Imperial War Conference, 469. 

Imperialism, see New imperialism. 

Impi, native negro regiment, 262. 

Independence, growing feeling for, in 
America, 119. 

India, beginning of English interest in, 
63; internal conditions, 88-91; effect of 
mercantilism on, 102; early adminis- 
tration of, 111-13; under the Moguls, 
178-79; social reforms in, during Ben- 
tinck's administration, 197-98; rail- 
way development in, 208; postal sys- 
tem of, 208; the Mutiny, 208-10; reor- 
ganized government of, 210; foreign 
policy of British in, since 1857, 301-08; 



XVI 



INDEX 



importance of, 301 ; northwest frontier 
of, 304; population of, 308; present 
government of, 309, 313; native states 
of, 309-10; unrest in, 310-14; govern- 
mental reforms of 1909, 312; govern- 
mental reforms of 1919, 313; life of the 
people, 314-19; financial condition of, 
315; industry in, 316-17; education in, 
317-18; importance of, in British 
foreign policy, 320-22; political rela- 
tion of Persian Gulf to, 340; recent 
political conditions, 437, 461-63, 469. 

India Office, 437. 

Indian Civil Service, 317. 

Indian Councils Act of 1909, 312. 

Indian National Congress, 310. 

Indians, American, 19, 76, 79, 80, 220. 

Indies, early European interest in the, 14- 
19. 

Indore, Holkar of, Maratha chieftain, 
189. 

Industrial legislation, see Labor legisla- 
tion. 

Industrial Revolution, 131-45; effect of, 
135-36; causes for rise of, 136; conse- 
quences of, to British Empire, 142-45; 
and free trade, 283; in India, 316-17. 

Infanticide, in India, suppression of, 197. 

Intercolonial Railway, agreement con- 
cerning, 403; completion of, 405. 

Intercursus Magnus, 14. 

International African Association, 291. 

Intolerable Acts, of 1774, 124. 

Inventions, of Industrial Revolution, 
136-^2. 

Ionian Islands, become British, 158, 341 ; 
mission of Gladstone to, 342; cession 
of, to Greece, 342. 

Iraq, see Mesopotamia. 

Ireland, conquest of, 6; effect of mercan- 
tile system on, 105; legislative inde- 
pendence of, 128 n, 434; effect of Amer- 
ican Revolution on, 128; emigration 
from, assisted, 168-69; movement for 
Home Rule in, 434; since 1914, 465- 
68; Treaty with Great Britain, 467. 

Iron industry, curbing of, in American 
colonies, 104; in Ireland, 105; stimulus 
to, of Industrial Revolution, 139; in- 
creased output in, 140; growth of, 142. 

Iroquois, the, 76, 79-80. 

Ismail, sale of Canal shares of, 338; de- 
position of, 346-47. 

Italy, rise of colonial empire of, 294. 

Jagir, granted to Clive, 180. 
Jahangir, Mogul Emperor, 91. 
Jalalabad, retreat of British from Kabul 

to, 202-03. 
Jamaica, capture of, 51; government of, 

439 and n. 
James I, 5-6, 35. 



James II, 36; and colonial administra- 
tion* 109. 

James VI of Scotland, see James I. 

Jameson Raid, 369. 

Jamestown, settlement of, 1, 38-40. 

Japan, trade of, with West, 60. 

Java, center of Dutch colonial empire, 
59; British conquest of,. 157, 328. 

Jenkins' Ear, War of, see Austrian Suc- 
cession, War of. 

Jenkins, Robert, 84. 

Jenkinson, Anthony, commercial activity 
of, 29 n. 

Jersey, Isle of, 435. 

Jesuits, 27; in New France, 76; Estates 
of, in Canada, 414. 

Jesus, flagship of Hawkins, 30. 

Johannesburg, founding of, 367. 

John, King, 5, 7. 

Johnston, Sir Harry, quoted, 268 n. 

Judd, Sir Andrew, 62. 

Kabul, Russian envoy in, 202; British 
capture of, 203 ; murder of British resi- 
dent in, 305. 

Kaffraria, British, 276. 

Kafirs, a Bantu tribe, 263 ; first and sec- 
ond wars with, 264; fifth and sixth 
wars with, 267-68; sympathy of Lord 
Glenelg for, 268; seventh war with, 
276; famine among, 276 n. 

Kaiser, the, see William II. 

Kalgoorlie, Australian go'd field, 388. 

Kalm, Travels into North America, 116. 

Kamerun, see Cameroons. 

Kandahar, 201. 

Kay, John, inventor of the fly-shuttle, 
137. 

Kei River, 268. 

Keiskamma River, 268. 

Kempenfelt, Admiral, 126. 

Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 455. 

Khalifate, in the Sudan, 352; in India, 
462. 

Khartum, death of Gordon at, 351; re- 
covery of, 352. 

Khyber Pass, 201. 

Kidd, Capt., buccaneer, 54. 

K-'mberley, diamonds discovered at, 
359; relief of, 371. 

King Movement, in New Zealand, 377. 

King William's War, 74, 79-80. 

King, W. L. M., Canadian Prime Minis- 
ter, 417. 

Kingston, settlement of Loyalists 
around, 220. 

Kipling, Rudyard, 288 and n., 299. 

Kitchener, Lord, Sirdar of Egyptian 
army, 352; at Fashoda, 352; adminis- 
trator of Egypt, 355; in South African 
War, 371. 

Kodok, see Fashoda. 



INDEX 



xvii 



Kolobeng, 274. 

Kordofan, 350. 

Kowloon, cession of, 334 n., 335. 

Kruger, Paul, in Great Trek, 271; lead- 
ership in Transvaal, 273, 361; in South 
African War, 367-70. 

Kuria Muria Islands, 339. 

Labor legislation, in New Zealand, 382; 
in Australia, 391. 

Labor Party, in Australia, 396, 458. 

La Bourdonnais, 93-94, 324. 

Laccadive Islands, 308, 325. 

Lachine Rapids, 76. 

Ladysmith, relief of, 371. 

Lafontame, L. H., 228. 

Lagos, 88, 454 n. 

La Hogue, naval victory of, 81. 

Lahore, Sikh capital, 204. 

Laing's Nek, battle of, 362. 

Laisser-faire, see Free trade. 

Lajpat Rai, Indian political agitator, 
311; arrest of, 463. 

Lally, Count, French leader in India, 
94. 

Lancashire, and India, 317; and Egypt, 
353. 

Lancaster, Capt., 61-62. 

Land for Settlements Act, in New Zea- 
land, 381. 

Land policy, of Wakefield scheme, 170; in 
Australia, 173, 391 ; of South Australia, 
248; in New Zealand, 381. 

Land and Emigration Board, 173. 

Land, "purchase" of, from Maoris, 255. 

Land settlement in India, 186. 

Lane, Ralph, 40. 

La Perouse, French explorer, 241 and n. 

Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, at Colonial Confer- 
ence of 1897, 298; policy of Liberals 
under, 411-12; not an imperialist, 415; 
and World War, 458-59; death of, 
415 n. 

Lawrence, Sir Henry, 204; death of, at 
Lucknow, 210. 

Lawrence, John, Governor of Punjab, 
210; Viceroy of India, 303- 

League of Augsburg, War of, see King 
William's War. 

League of Nations, 452 and n. 

Le Canadien, 222. 

Leeuwin, Cape, 236. 

Leeward Islands, government of, 439. 

Leichhardt, Ludwig, 387. 

Leopold II, of Belgium, 291. 

Lesser Antilles, see West Indies. 

Levant Company, see Turkey or Levant 
Company. 

Lexington, battle of, 125. 

Libya, see Tripoli. 

Light, Col., in South Australia; 248. 

Livingstone, town of, 364. 



Livingstone : David, missionary activity 
of, 274; explorations of, 290, 363. 

Lobengula, Matabele chieftain, 365. 

Locomotive, see Steam engine. 

London Company, establishment, of 38; 
dissolved, 41. 

London Convention of 1884 (Transvaal), 
362. 

London Missionary Society, and the 
Boers, 271, 274, 282 n.; in southern 
Pacific, 397. 

Long Parliament, 36. 

Louis XIV, 75. 

Louisburg, capture of, 85; restoration of, 
85; destruction of, 87. 

Louisiana, 77. 

Low Countries, see Holland. 

Lower Canada, 221, 232. See also, Que- 
bec. 

Loyalists, 218-20, 223. 

Lucas, Sir Charles, quoted, 227. 

Lucknow, relief of, 210. 

Luderitz, F. A. L., German colonial mer- 
chant, 293. 

Lymburner, Adam, Quebec merchant, 
221. 

Lytton, Lord, Viceroy of India, 305. 

Macao, 334. 

Macarthur, John, 242. 

Macaulay, Lord, on education in India, 
198; and the cod'fication of Indian law, 
199. 

McCulloch, J. R., quoted on cost of col- 
onies, 162-63; Statistical Account of the 
British Empire of, 165. 

McCulloch Ministry, in Victoria, 389-90. 

Macdonald, Sir John A., leader of Ca- 
nadian Conservatives, 230; member of 
Quebec Convention, 231 ; quoted on the 
new colonial system, 232; on future of 
Canada, 233; Prime Minister of Can- 
ada, 403-04; on menace of the United 
States, 407; National Policy of, 409- 
10; on relation of the United States 
and Canada, 422; death of, 411. 

McDougall, William, of Ontario, 231. 

Mackenzie, Alexander, Prime Minister 
of Canada, 409. 

Mackenzie, W. L., leader in Canadian 
Rebellion, 225. 

Macquarie Harbor, 243. 

Macquarie, Lachlan, Governor of New 
South Wales, 242. 

Madagascar, 78, 289. 

Madras, 65; capture of, by French, 85; 
Thomas Pitt, Governor of, 86; capture 
of, by La Bourdonnais, 93; restored to 
Great Britain, 93. 

Madraspatam, see Madras. 

Maf eking, 369, 371. 

Magellan, 23-24. 



xvm 



INDEX 



Magna Charta, 7. 

Mahan, Admiral, quoted, 83. 

Mahdi, revolt of, 350. 

Maine, attempted settlement of, 42; set- 
tlement of, 45; boundary controversy, 
418-19. 

Maitland, Sir Peregrine, Governor of 
Cape Colony, 271. 

Majuba Hill, battle of, 362. 

Malacca, Portuguese capture of, 19, 56; 
Dutch capture of, 60; British acquisi- 
tion of, 327; importance of, 320, 327. 

Malaga, naval battle off, 81. 

Malay States, Federated, 432, 440. 

Malaysia, British interest in, 327-31. 

Maldive Islands, 325. 

Malta, acquisition of, 157, 158, 343; gov- 
ernment of, 439-40. 

Malthus, on population, 166-67. 

Man, Isle of, 435. 

Mandates, grant of, after World War, 
452 and n. 

Manitoba, Lord Selkirk's colonists in, 
168; organization of province of, 408; 
rebellion of metis in, 408; educational 
question in, 413. 

Maoris, character of, 253 ; treaty of, with 
British, 254; "purchase" of lands from, 
255; status of, 376, 378; loyalty of, dur- 
ing World War, 457. 

Marathas, rise of, 91; power of, 179; first 
war with, 183; second war with, 188- 
89; third war with, 191. 

Marie Galante, capture of, 88. 

Maritime Provinces, see New Brunswick, 
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island. 

Maritz, rebel leader in South Africa, 460. 

Martinique, becomes French, 78; cap- 
tured by British, 88; restored, 96; re- 
captured, 156. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, 26-27. 

Maryland, grant of, to George Calvert, 69. 

Maseres, Baron, quoted on Quebec, 213. 

Massachusetts, settlement of, 42-45; 
loses charter, 109 ; new charter partially 
revoked, 124. 

Massey, W. F., Prime Minister of New 
Zealand, 457. 

Masulipatam, English agency at, 65; 
French factory at, 78. 

Matabele, a Bantu tribe, 263 ; driven from 
Transvaal, 271-72; British agreement 
with, 365. 

Matabeleland, see Rhodesia. 

Mauritius, acquired by French, 78; cap- 
tured by British, 157-58, 323-24; gov- 
ernment of, 439. 

Mayflower, the, 42. 

Mayflower Compact, the, 42-43 and n. 

Mayo, Lord, Viceroy of India, 303. 

Mediterranean, Great Britain and the, 
340-44. 



Mehemet Ali, Egyptian ruler, 344-46. 

Melbourne, founding of, 244. 

Mercantilism, in British colonial system, 
99-105; influence of, on India, 102; ef- 
fect of, on Ireland, 105; breakdown of, 
133-34. 

Mercers Company, 29 n. 

Merchant Adventurers, rise of, 13-14, 20. 

Merchant gilds, see Gilds, merchant. 

Merchants' Petition, of 1820, 283. 

Merchants of the Staple, 12. 

Mesopotamia, mandate of, to Great Bri- 
tain, 456. 

Methuen Treaty, with Portugal, 99. 

Metis, 407, 408, 410. 

Milan Decree of Napoleon, 153. 

Mill, J. S., advocate of systematic coloni- 
zation, 172; defends East India Com- 
pany, 210. 

Milner, Sir Alfred, High Commissioner 
of South Africa, 370, 372. 

Milner Commission, report of, on Egypt, 
464. 

Minorca, becomes British, 82; captured 
by French, 87; returned to Great Bri- 
tain, 96; recaptured, 126; relinquished 
to Spain, 127, 157, 341 and n. 

Minto, Lord, Viceroy of India, 311. 

Mir Jafar, Nawab of Bengal, 95, 180. 

Missionary activity, in New Zealand, 
253; importance of, 282 and n.; in 
South Africa, 363-64. 

Missionary societies, influence of, 269. 

Mitchell, Sir Thomas, 387. 

Mocha, trade of Dutch with, 60. 

Model Parliament of 1295, 7. 

Modyford, Governor of Jamaica, 53. 

Moffat, Robert, 364. 

Mogul Empire, court of, at Agra, 64 ; es- 
tablishment of, 90, 178; decline of, 91. 

Mohammedanism, in India, 90; in Egypt, 
355. 

Moira, Lord, see Hastings, Marquess of. 

Molasses Act of 1733, 107; renewal of, 
122. 

Molesworth, advocate of systematic col- 
onization, 172; friend of Lord Durham, 
226. 

Molson, John, 233. 

Molucca Islands, See Spice Islands. 

Monck, Lord, Governor of Canada, 231. 

Monroe Doctrine, inception of, 156. 

Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, cf Indian 
government, 313. 

Montcalm, General, 88. . 

Montesquieu, on loss of British Colonies, 
116. 

Montfort, Simon de, 7. 

Montgomery, General, invades Canada, 
217. 

Montreal, visited by Cartier, 76; cap- 
tured by British, 88; captured by 



INDEX 



xix 



Americans, 217; Parliament build- 
ings burned in, 229; growth of, 233. 

Montserrat, settlement of, 50; captured 
by French, 126. 

Morgan, Henry, buccaneer, 53. 

Morley, Lord, quoted on Indian prob- 
lems, 301; Secretary of State for In- 
dia, 312; moves address to ratify Irish 
Treaty, 468. 

Morley-Minto reforms for India, 312. 

Morocco, 289, 296. 

Morocco Company, 29. 

Moshesh, native leader in Basutoland, 
276. 

Mosul, 15. 

Mountstephen, Lord, and the Canadian 
Pacific, 410. 

Mun, Thomas, England's Treasure by 
Foreign Trade, cited, 100. 

Murray, Gen., Governor of Canada, 212. 

Murshidabad, 95. 

Muscovy Company, see Russian or Mus- 
covy Company. 

Mutiny, Indian, 208-10. 

Mysore, location of, 178; first war with, 
184; second war with, 187; third war 
with, 188; return of, to Maharaja, 
304. 

Nachtigal, Dr., German colonial agent, 
293. 

Nadir Shah, 178-79. 

Nagpur, annexation of, 206. 

Nana Sahib, 208-09. 

Nandkumar, trial of, 184. 

Nanking, Treaty of, 334. 

Napier, Sir Charles, 203. 

Napoleon, rise of, 148; establishes con- 
tinental system, 151, 153. 

Natal, named, 18, 260; attempt of trek- 
kers to settle in, 271 ; colony of, 277; be- 
comes self-governing, 277. 

National African Company, 441. 

National Colonization Society, 172. 

National Policy of Canadian Conserva- 
tives, 409-10. 

Nationalism, principle of shown in ces- 
sion of Ionian Islands, 342 ; growth of, 
in Egypt, 347; growth of, in Cape 
Colony, 363. See also, Unrest, politi- 
cal. 

Nationalist Party, in Australia, 458. 

Nauru, mandate of, 453-54. 

Naval Defense Agreement, Australasian, 
444. 

Navigation Act, of 1651, 67; First, of 
1660, 106; Second, of 1663, 106; Third, 
of 1672, 106; of 1696, 106-07. 

Navigation, growth of British, 141. 

Navigation laws, repeal of, 229, 283. 

Navy, under Henry VIII, 26; during 
Stuart rule, 37; power of, in 1713, 83- 



84; during Napoleonic Wars, 149-50, 
155; supremacy of, 429. 

Nelson, Admiral, in Battle of Cape St. 
Vincent, 149 ; in the Battle of the Nile, 
149; at Trafalgar, 150. 

Nelson, Dr. Wolfred, in Canadian Re- 
bellion, 224. 

Nepal, relation of, to British India, 308; 
442. 

Netherlands, see Holland. 

Nevis, settlement of, 50, 52 ; captured by 
French, 126. 

New Amsterdam, 67-68. 

New Brunswick, acquired, 86; set apart 
for Loyalists, 219; Thomas Carleton, 
Governor of, 219. 

New Caledonia, 398. 

Newcastle, founding of, 241. 

New England, settlement of, 42-45; 
value of, 103-04. 

Newfoundland, attempt at colonization 
of, 32 ; acquisition of, 45-46, 422 ; and 
George Calvert, 69; France relin- 
quishes claim to, 82; fishing rights 
granted to Americans, 127; stays out 
of the Dominion of Canada, 232; 
granted self-government, 285, '24; 
fishing controversies of, with French, 
424-25; with the United States, 425; 
railways built in, 425-26; distinctive- 
ness of, 426; share of, in World War, 
451. 

New Guinea, German, 293; division of, 
297; Australian desire for, 398; Ger- 
man, as mandate, 453. 

New Guinea, British, see Papua. 

New Hampshire, settlement of, 45. 

New Hebrides, 398. 

New Holland, 238. 

New Imperialism, rise of, 287; stimulus 
to, from rivalry, 288; results of, in 
British Empire, 295-99; in South 
Africa, 363-67; summarized, 431-33. 

New Jersey, settlement of, 69. 

New Netherland, 45. 

New Plymouth, New Zealand, 377-78. 

Newport, Captain, in Virginia, 39. 

New South Wales, founding of, 239-43; 
gold discovered in, 250; grant of self- 
government to, 285, 385; opposed to 
Federal Council, 393; federal consti- 
tution accepted by, 394. 

New York, 109, 123. See also New Am- 
sterdam. 

New Zealand, physical character of, 252- 
53; visited by Tasman, 238; visited by 
Captain Cook, 238; colonization of, 
under Wakefield scheme, 173; early 
history of, 252-57; aborigines of, 253; 
acquired by Great Britain, 254; state 
of, in 1851, 257; constitution granted 
to, 257; acquires self-government, 285; 



XX 



INDEX 



and the Maoris, 376-78 ; unification of, 
379; state socialism in, 380-83; consti- 
tutional advance since 1876, 381 ; be- 
comes a Dominion, 383; represented at 
Federal Convention in Sydney, 393; 
and Pacific Islands, 397-99; desire of, 
for changes in Colonial Conferences, 
445 ; conquest of Samoa by, 450 ; share 
of, in World War, 450; politics of, dur- 
ing World War, 457. 

New Zealand Association, 254. 

New Zealand Land Company, founded, 
173; opposed by Wakefield, 255; dis- 
solved, 256. 

Niagara, 88. 

Nicobar Islands, 308, 327. 

Nicolet, Jean, 77 and n. 

Nigeria, acquired, 296, 441; British in- 
terest in, 432 ; addition to, by mandate, 
454; consolidation of, 454 n. 

Nile, battle of the, 149 ; irrigation of val- 
ley of, 349. 

Non-cooperative movement, in India, 
463. 

Norfolk Island, 240. 

North, Lord, Regulating Act for India 
of, 112, 182-83; Prime Minister, 124. 

North Borneo, government of, 333, 441. 

Northbrook, Lord, Viceroy of India, 
304-05. 

Northern Territory, Australia, 388-89. 

Northwest frontier, of India, 200-05; 
safety of, 303; formation of buffer 
province for, 306. 

Northwest Fur Company, 168, 407. 

Northwest passage, search for the, 14, 
28-29, 46-48; Company of the, 47. 

Norwich, 12. 

Nova Scotia, divided, 219; federation 
movement in, 231; upper house in, 
403 ; hesitancy of, in entering confeder- 
ation, 404. See also Acadia. 

Nuncomar, see Nandkumar. 

Nyasa, Lake, discovered, 364. 

Nyasaland, 432, 440. 

Old colonial system, aims of, 70-73; de- 
velopment of, after Restoration, 72; 
lack of system in, 98; character of, 98- 
113; before American Revolution, 108- 
10; "tightening" policy after 1763, 
121-25; effect of American Revolution 
on, 127-29; attacked by Adam Smith, 
132-33; summarized, 428-31. 

Old Providence Island, 52. 

Oman, 340, 442. 

Omdurman, battle of, 352. 

Ontario, population of, in 1867, 233. 

Opium, manufacture of, 317; War, 317, 
334. 

Orange Free State, trek to, 271; an- 
nexed by Great Britain in 1848, 271; 



independence granted to, 273; popula- 
tion of, in 1870, 277; loss of Griqua- 
land by, 359; annexed by Great Bri- 
tain, in 1900, 371. 

Orders-in-Council, against Napoleon, 
152-54. 

Oregon, boundary dispute as to, 419. 

Ormuz, occupied by Portuguese, 19, 56; 
acquired by British, 339. 

Osman Digna, 352. 

Otis, James, 122. 

Ottawa, 229 n. 

Ottoman Empire, see Turkish Empire. 

Oudh, independence of, 178; princesses 
of, 184; annexation of, 206-07. 

Outram, relief expedition of, 210. 

Overland telegraph, in Australia, 389. 

Overseas Trade, Department of, 436. 

Pah, Maori fortification, 377 n. 

Palestine, mandate of, to Great Britain, 
456; value of, 457. 

Papineau, leader in Canadian Rebellion, 
223-24. 

Papua, acquired, 398; government of, 
453. 

Paris, Peace of, 96. 

Parkes, Henry, of Australia, 392-93. 

Parliament of York, 7. 

Parnell, Sir Henry, quoted on cost of col- 
onies, 162; advocates relinquishing 
certain colonies, 164. 

Patteson, Bishop John C, 397. 

Pauperism, 166. 

Peel, Thomas, 246. 

Pelican, flagship of Drake, 31-32. 

Penang, British acquisition of, 328, 430. 

Penjdeh, Afghan outpost, 306. 

Penn, Admiral, 51. 

Penn, William, 69. 

Pennsylvania, settlement of, 69. 

Pepper, in mediaeval commerce, 16. 

Peppercorn, vessel of East India Com- 
pany, 63. 

Pepperell, Col., 85. 

Perim, 338. 

Permanent settlement of Indian revenue, 
186. 

Permissive Federation Act for South 
Australia, 360. 

Persia, 290, 3S9, 442. 

Persian Gulf, British interests in, 308. 

Perth, founding of, 246. 

Peshwa, of Marathas, 188; abolition of 
office of, 191. 

Petition of Right, 36. 

Philadelphia, 124. 

Philip, Dr. John, Researches in South 
Africa of, 269. 

Philippines, discovered, 23; British con- 
quest of, 88. 

Philippolis, 363. 



INDEX 



xxi 



Phillip, Captain Arthur, 239. 

Phips, Sir William, 80. 

Physiocrats, rise of, 101. 

Pietermaritzburg, founding of, 271. 

Pindaris, suppression of, 190-91. 

Pinzon, Spanish explorer, 23. 

Pitt, Thomas, Governor of Madras, 
86. 

Pitt, William, the Elder, character and 
policy of, 86; in charge of foreign af- 
fairs, 87; attitude of, toward Stamp 
Act,123; opposed to Quebec Act, 216. 

Pitt, William, the Younger, India Act 
of, 112, 185; influence of Adam Smith 
on, 134-35; character and policy of, 
146 ; attitude of, to French Revolution, 
147; and Canada Act of 1791, 221. 

Pizarro, Spanish conqueror, 24. 

Plassey, battle of, 180. 

Plymouth, settlement of, 42-43. 

Plymouth Company, 13. 

Pocock, Admiral, 94. 

Pondichery, French factory at, 78; Du- 
pleix at, 92; captured by British, 94; 
returned to France, 96. 

Poona, Maratha court at, 183, 188. 

Poor Laws, 166. 

Popham, George, member of Virginia 
Company, 38; attempted colonization 
of Maine by, 42. 

Popham, Sir Home, 157. 

Population, of American colonies in 1775, 
116; growth of Australian, 396; of 
Victoria, 251; of Barbados, 50-51; of 
Canada in 1867, 233; of Upper Canada 
in 1791, 220; of Quebec in 1763, 213; of 
Cape Colony in 1806, 266; of Great 
Britain, 144, 166; of South Africa in 
1870, 277; rapid increase of, in New 
Zealand, 380. 

Port Arthur, Tasmania, 243. 

Port Jackson, Australia, 238. 

Port Mahon, 82, 341. 

Port Nicholson, New Zealand, 255. 

Port Phillip, settlement of, 244. 

Port Royal, capture of, 81. 

Portugal, early maritime activity of, 17- 
19, 259; obtains Brazil, 23; formation 
of colonial empire of, 32 1 ; dominions of, 
acquired by Spain, 24; commercial 
activity of, 56. 

Potgieter, Boer leader, 272. 

Prescott, Governor of Canada, 222. 

Pretoria Convention of 1881, 362. 

Pretoria, Treaty of, 371. 

Pretorius, Boer leader, 272. 

Pretorius, Marthinus, President of the 
Transvaal, 274. 

Prevost, Sir George, 223. 

Prince Edward Island, settled, 167; 
joins Dominion, 232, 405. 

Prince of Wales, visit of, to India, 463. 



Privy Council, and colonial administra- 
tion, 110. 

Privy Council, Judicial Committee of, 
437. 

Protection, growth of, 291. 

Protectorates, British, 440. 

Providence Island Company, 52. 

Provincial system, in New Zealand, 257. 

Public Works Policy, in New Zealand, 
379. 

Pularoon, grant of, to England, 68. 

Punjab, location and character of, 200; 
annexation of, 205. 

Purchas, His Pilgrimes, 33. 

Puritan emigration, to New England, 42- 
44. 

Quakers, settlement of, in America, 69. 

Quartering Act, of 1765, 123; of 1774, 
124. 

Quarterly Review, quoted, 164, 167, 227. 

Quebec Act of 1774, 124, 214-15. 

Quebec City, site of, visited by Cartier, 
76; Cham plain at, 76; attacked by Sir 
Wm. Phips, 80; captured by Wolfe, 88; 
attack on, by Americans, 217; popula- 
tion of, in 1763, 233; confederation 
conference at, 231. 

Quebec Province, annexation of, 212; 
boundaries of, in 1774, 214-16; govern- 
ment of, 216; population of, in 1867, 
233; upper house in, 403; and Jesuits' 
Estates, 414; anti-imperialism in, 415. 

Queen Anne's War, see Spanish Succes- 
sion, War of. 

Queensland, 245, 386, 397. 

Quiberon Bay, naval battle of, 88. 

Quinte, Bay of, Loyalist settlement on, 
220. 

Racial blending, in British Isles, 1-4. 

Radisson, French explorer, 77. 

Raffles, Sir Stamford, British ruler of 
Java, 328; acquires Singapore, 330. 

Railways, beginning of, in England, 140; 
in India, 207; of New Zealand, 382; in 
Canada, 403, 405-10, 417; in New- 
foundland, 425. 

Rajput kingdoms, rise of, 90. 

Rajputana, independence of, 178. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 32. 

Rand, discovery of gold on the, 367. 

Randolph, Edward, 107. 

Ran jit Singh, ruler of Sikhs, 200-01: 
death of, 204. 

Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 303 ; England and 
Russia in the East by, 304. 

Raymond, Captain, 61. 

Rebellion Losses Bill, in Canada, 229. 

Reciprocity, between Canada and the 
United States, 229, 412, 420. 

Red River, settlement on, 168. 



XX11 



INDEX 



Reform Party of New Zealand, 457. 

Reform, political, demand for, see Un- 
rest, political. 

Reid, G. H., Australian statesman, 396. 

Reid, R. G., railway contractor, 425. 

Representative government, in early 
Massachusetts, 44. 

Responsible government, see Self-govern- 
ment. 

Revenue, increase of, 142. 

Rhode Island, settlement of, 44. 

Rhodes, Cecil, 288, early life of, 366; 
Prime Minister of Cape Colony, 367; 
promises aid to Uitlanders, 369; loss 
of power of, 369. 

Rhodesia, Northern, death of Living- 
stone in, 364; control of, by British 
South Africa Company, 366 ; desire for 
self-government in, 442. 

Riel, Louis, leads rebellion of metis, 408; 
execution of, 410. 

Ripon, Lord, Viceroy of India, 304-05. 

Roanoke, colony at, 32. 

Roberts, Lord, 371. 

Robinson, Sir Hercules, 369. 

Rodney, Admiral, 127. 

Roe, Sir Thomas, 64. 

Rohilla War, 183. 

Rolfe, John, 40. 

Rooke, Sir George, 81, 342. 

Rosebery, Lord, 443. 

Rowlatt Report, on Indian conspiracies, 
462. 

Royal Colonial Institute, 443. 

Royal Niger Company, 432, 441. 

Royal provinces in eighteenth century, 
109. 

Russell, Lord John, quoted on responsi- 
ble government, 227; quoted on work 
of Sir George Grey, 249; and political 
reform, 284; and colonial reform, 285. 

Russia, English trade with, 29 ; break of, 
with Napoleon, 154; British fear of, in 
southern Asia, 201; empire of, 289; in- 
terest of, in Persia, 290; aggressive im- 
perialism ofy- 304; and Afghanistan, 
305-07; and Tibet, 307. 

Russian or Muscovy Company, 13, 29, 
62. 

Ryerson, Egerton, 225. 

Ryot, Indian peasant, 316. 

Said Pasha, 338. 

St. Christopher, see St. Kitts. 

St. David, Fort, 93. 

St. Eustatius, 126. 

St. Helena, loss of, by Dutch, 70; prison 

of Napoleon, 149; value of, 322-23; 

government of, 440. 
St. Kitts, settlement of, 50, 52; becomes 

solely British, 82; capture of, by 

French, 126. 



St. Lucia, capture of, by British, 88, 156; 
ceded to British, 158. 

St. Vincent, capture of, 88. 

Salt revenue, in India, 317. 

Samoa, German interest in, 294; under 
control of New Zealand, 383, 450; 
mandate of, to New Zealand, 453. 

Sand River Convention, 272. 

Sandys, Sir Edwin, 41. 

Santa Cruz Islands, 397. 

Santo Domingo, 51. 

Saratoga, battle of, 125. 

Sarawak, 332-33. 

Saskatchewan, 410. 

Sati, suppression of, 197. 

Saunders, Admiral, 88. 

Say and Sele, Lord, 44. 

Scheldt, neutrality of river, 147 and n. 

Scotland, 5. 

Scurvy, ravages of, 239, 261 and n. 

Sea-power, see Navy. 

Seddon, R. J., 380. 

Seeley, Sir John, Expansion of England 
of, 288. 

Seignorial Tenure, in Canada, 229. 

Selborne, Lord, Colonial Secretary, 373. 

Self-determination, see Unrest, political. 

Self-government, in Virginia, 41; in Bar- 
bados, 51; in New England, 119; pro- 
posed by Wakefield, 171 ; advocated by 
Durham Report, 226-27; introduced in 
Canada, 228 ; in South Australia, 249 ; 
in Australian colonies, 250, 384-86; in 
New Zealand, 257; in Cape Colony, 
275 ; in Natal, 277 ; movement to grant, 
to the Dominions, 284-85; grant of, to 
Boer states, 372; in Union of South 
Africa, 373-74; in Canada, 401-03; in 
Newfoundland, 424 ; partial, in Malta, 
439-40; in Channel Islands, 435; in 
Isle of Man, 435; desire for, in Rho- 
desia, 442; in Ulster, 466; in southern 
Ireland, 467. 

Selkirk, Lord, 167-68. 

Selwyn, Bishop, 397. 

Senegal Valley, acquired by France, 289. 

Sepoys, revolt of, 209. 

Seringapatam, 187. 

Seven Years' War, 74, 85-88, 121, 132, 
429. 

Sevres, Treaty of, 455; and India, 462. 

Seychelles, 324. 

Shah Shuja, 201-02. 

Shantung Peninsula, 297, 335. 

Sheep, introduction of, into Australia, 
242 ; into Tasmania, 243 ; into Queens- 
land, 245. 

Shepstone, Sir Theophilus, 360. 

Shipbuilding, in American colonies, 104. 

Shirley, Governor, of Massachusetts, 85. 

Shore, Sir John, and Bengal revenue, 
186; Governor-General of India, 187. 



INDEX 



xxm 



Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 81. 

Sierra Leone, 432, 454 n. 

Sikhs, development of, 200; first war 
with, 204; second war with, 205. 

Silk industry, in India, 316. 

Sind, location of, 200. 202 ; acquired, 203. 

Sindhia, Maratha chieftain, 189. 

Singapore, acquired, 330; growth of, 331. 

Sinha, Lord, 314 n. 

Sinn Fein, growth of, 466. 

Sivaji, Maratha leader, 91, 179. 

Slaghter's Nek, battle of, 269. 

Slavery, introduced into the West Indies, 
54; abolition of, 270, 281-82. 

Slave-trade, Hawkins' activity in the, 
29-31; English participation in the, 
54-55; extent of, in seventeenth cen- 
tury, 55; Dutch interest in, 66; West 
African stations for the, 70; British 
monopoly of, for Spanish America, 82 ; 
in old colonial system, 103 ; suppression 
of, 282, 350. 

Sleeman, Major, 197. 

Smith, Adam, influence of his Wealth of 
Nations, 101 ; quoted, 132-33. 

Smith, Donald A., 410. 

Smith, Sir Harry, 271. 

Smith, Captain John, 39-40. 

Smuts, General, advocates union of 
South Africa, 373; Prime Minister of 
South Africa, 461 ; at War Conferences, 
469; quoted on Dominion status, 472; 
quoted on Anglo-American relations, 
474. 

Smythe, Sir Thomas, 62. 

Sokotra, captured by Portuguese, 19, 
56; and British, 339. 

Solis, Spanish explorer, 23. 

Solomon Islands, British, 399. 

Solomon Islands, German, 399. 

Somaliland, Italian, 294; British, 296, 
338, 432, 440. 

Somers, Sir George, 38, 48, 50 n. 

Somers Islands, see Bermudas. 

Somers Islands Company, 62. 

South Africa, settlement of, 259-61, 263- 
64; British conquest of, 266; the Great 
Trek, 270-72; early move for confed- 
eration in, 360; constitution of Union of, 
373-74; share of, in World War, 450- 
51; internal affairs of, during World 
War, 459; civil war in, 460. See also 
under names of provinces. 

South African Party, formation of, 374, 
459; success of, 461. 

South African Republic, see Transvaal. 

South African War, 370-72, 415. 

South Australia, colonized under Wake- 
field scheme, 173 ; early history of, 247- 
50; grant of self-government to, 285; 
liberal constitution of, 385-86. 

South Australia Land Company, 247. 



Southwest Africa, 293, 455. 

Spain, beginning of colonial empire of, 
22-24; acquires Portuguese Empire, 
24, 58; trade restriction in colonies of, 
28; during American Revolution, 125. 

Spanish Succession, War of, 74, 80-82. 

Spectator, the, organ of systematic col- 
onizers, 172. 

Spice Islands, products of, 16, 24; visited 
by Sir Francis Drake, 32 ; taken by the 
Dutch, 59; Anglo-Dutch rivalry in, 64. 

Spices of the Far East, demand for, 14- 
15. 

Spinning, as a cottage industry, 137; im- 
provements in, during Industrial Rev- 
olution, 137-38. 

Stamp Act, issuance of, 122; effect of, 
123. 

Stamp Act Congress, 123. 

Stanley, Henry M., 291. 

State Socialism, in New Zealand, 380- 
83. 

Steam engine, 139-42. 

Stephen, King, 4. 

Stephen, George, see Mountstephen, 
Lord. 

Stephenson, George, 140. 

Stevens, Thomas, visits Goa, 61. 

Stirling, Captain, in Western Australia, 
246. 

Straits' Settlements, 331. 

Strathcona, Lord, 410 and n. 

Stuart, Australian explorer, 243, 388. 

Sturt, Captain Charles, 387. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, 67. 

Sudan, Anglo-French tension in, 296; and 
Mehemet AH, 346; British relation to, 
350-53; government of, 353. 

Suez Canal, 287, 337-38. 

Sugar, importance of, in West Indies, 50; 
in Queensland, 397. 

Sugar Act, of 1764, 122. 

Sugar Islands, see West Indies. 

Summerhill Creek, 250. 

Suraj-ud-daulah, Nawab of Lower Ben- 
gal, 94. 

Surat, English factory at, 63; French 
factory at, 78. 

Swadeshi, in India, 311. 

Swally, naval battle at, 64. 

Swan River, settlement along the, 246. 

Swaraj, in India, 463. 

Swellendam, settlement of, 263 ; insurrec- 
tion in, 264. 

Sydenham, Lord, Governor-General of 
Canada, 227. 

Sydney, Australia, 238-39; colonial con- 
gress at, 293. 

Sydney, Lord, on division of Canada, 
221 ; Colonial Secretary, 239. 

Syme, David, 390. 

Systematic colonization, of Wakefield, 



XXIV 



INDEX 



170-71; included in Durham Report, 
227. 

Tabje Bay, 260. 

Tache, Sir Etienne, Canadian Prime 
Minister, 229; member of Quebec 
Convention, 231. 

Tanganyika, Lake, 364. 

Tanganyika Territory, mandate of, 455. 

Tangier, obtained by Charles II, 340; 
abandoned, 341. 

Tasman, Abel, voyages of, 236. 

Tasmania, discovery of, 237; early his- 
tory of, 243; treatment of aborigines 
in, 244 ; abolition of transportation to, 
244; self-government in, 285, 385. 

Taxation, in Canada, 222; in New Zea- 
land, 381. 

Tea, duty on, 124; industry of, in India, 
317. 

Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 347. 

Terra Australis, belief in existence of, 
236. 

Terre Napoleon, 241. 

Tewfik, Egyptian ruler, 347-48. 

Textile industry, under domestic system, 
136-37; importance to, of Whitney's 
cotton gin, 138; application of Watt's 
engine to, 139; expansion of, 142-43; 
in India, 316. 

Thagi, suppression of, 197. 

Theebaw, King of Burma, 306. 

Thomson, Poulett, see Sydenham, Lord. 

Tibet, British interest in, 307. 

Tilak, B. G., Indian political agitator, 
311. 

Tilley, Leonard, 231, 403. 

Timor, 60. 

Tipu, of Mysore, accession of, 184; war 
with British, 187-88. 

Tobacco, Indian use of, 19; cultivation 
of, in Virginia, 40; in Bermudas, 50; 
in West Indies, 50. 

Tobago, returned to France, 127; recap- 
tured, 156; granted to British, 158. 

Togoland, 293, 454. 

Tonga Islands, 365, 399. 

Tordesillas, Treaty of, 23. 

Toronto Globe, 230. 

Torrens Basin, Australia, 387-88. 

Torres, Jewish interpreter with Colum- 
bus, 19. 

Torres, Spanish navigator, 236. 

Tortuga, importance of, to the bucca- 
neers, 52-53. 

Toulon, naval battle off, 85. 

Towns, commercial importance of, in 
Middle Ages, 10. 

Townshend, Charles, Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, 123. 

Trade, development of national, 10-20; 
Portuguese activity in eastern, 18-19; 



in Spanish colonial empire, 28; with 
France after the American Revolution, 
134; with the United States after 1783, 
134. See also Commerce. 

Trade routes, between Europe and Asia, 
16-17, 337. 

Trades Increase, vessel of East India 
Company, 63. 

Trading Companies, establishment of, 
13. 

Trafalgar, naval battle of, 150. 

Transportation, to Jamaica, 51; to West 
Indies, 54; to Georgia, 54; to Australia, 
239; abolition of, to Tasmania, 244; to 
Queensland, 245; abolition of, to Aus- 
tralian mainland, 250; Committee of 
1837, 172. 

Transvaal, migration of Boers into the, 
272; early confusion in, 273, 358; an- 
nexation of, 287, 360; revolt of, in 1880, 
362; gold discoveries in, 367; subse- 
quent internal troubles, 367-69; rean- 
nexation, 371. 

Transvaal National Union, of Uitlanders, 
368. 

Travancore, 187. 

Treaty, commercial, with Norway, 14; 
with Florence, 14; of Neutrality, 80; 
of Versailles (1783), 127; of Versailles 
(1919), 452. 

Treaty Shore, of Newfoundland, 423-24. 

Trek, the Great, 270-72. 

Trent, Council of, 27. 

Trichonopoli, siege of, 94. 

Trinidad, 23 ; capture of, by British, 156, 
430; government of, 440. 

Trinity House, 26. 

Tripartite Treaty of 1838, 202. 

Tripoli, 294. 

Tromp, Dutch admiral, 67. 

Tucker, Josiah, quoted on American 
Revolution, 117; anti-imperialism of, 
131. 

Tunis, acquisition of, by France, 289. 

Tupper, Sir Charles, 231. 

Turgot, on loss of British colonies, 116- 
17. 

Turkey Company, 13, 29. 

Turkish Empire, 343-44, 455. 

Tynwald, 435. 

Uganda, 296, 432, 440. 

Uitlanders, 358, 367-68; position of, af- 
ter Jameson Raid, 370. 

Ulster, acceptance of self-government by, 
466. 

United Empire Loyalists, see Loyalists. 

United Provinces, see Holland. 

United States, British trade with, after 
Revolution, 134, 163; effect of Napole- 
onic wars on, 155; illustration of a ma- 
ture colony, 165; war with Canada, 



INDEX 



XXV 



223; new imperialism of the, 295; con- 
stitution of, 395; and Canada, 403, 407, 
418-22; and Newfoundland, 425; Dis- 
armament Conference, 473; and the 
British Empire, 473-74. 

Unrest, political, in Asia, 311; in British 
Empire since 1914, 461-68; in Ceylon, 
326; in Egypt, 354, 464-65; in India, 
310-11; in Mauritius, 324. 

Upper Canada, see Ontario. 

Utrecht, Peace of, 82-84. 

Vancouver, George, British navigator, 
159. 

Vancouver Island, 406. 

Van Diemen, Governor of Dutch East 
India Company, 60, 236. 

Van Diemen's Land, see Tasmania. 

Vasco da Gama, 18, 259. 

Venables, General, 51. 

Verrazano, French navigator, 76. 

Versailles, Treaty of, in 1783, 127, 424; 
in 1919, 452. 

Victoria, Queen, chooses Canadian cap- 
ital, 229; colonial interests in reign of, 
280; golden jubilee of, 297; diamond 
jubilee of, 298, 411, 444. 

Victoria, beginnings of, 244; separatist 
movement in, 244; early government 
of, 245, discovery of gold in, 251 ; grant 
of self-government to, 285, 385; dif- 
ficulties with upper house of, 389-90. 

Vienna, Congress of, 158, 281-82. 

Virginia Company, the, 13, 62. 

Virginia, settlement of, 37-41. 

Vogel, Sir Julius, 379. 

Wairau River, 255. 

Waitangi, Treaty of, 174, 254; violation 
of, 256, 377. 

Waitara Block, trouble over, 377-78. 

Wakefield, Colonel, 254-55. 

Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, early life of, 
169; publishes A Letter from Sydney, 
169; scheme of, for systematic coloni- 
zation, 170-71 ; publishes England and 
America, A View of the Art of Coloniza- 
tion, 171 ; member of Durham Mission, 
173, 226; and settlement of South 
Australia, 247; founds New Zealand 
Association, 254; and New Zealand 
Land Company's policy, 255; later life 
of, 174, 256 n. 

Wales, English conquest of, 4-6. 

Walfisch Bay, see Whale Bay. 

Walker, Sir Hovenden, 81. 

Walpole, policy of, 84. 

Wandewash, battle of, 94. 

War of 1812, causes of, 155; character of, 
223. 

War of 1914, and the British Empire, 1, 
448-74; and Ireland, 465. 



Ward, Sir Joseph, New Zealand states- 
man, 380, 457. 

Warner, Thomas, colonizing activity of, 
50. 

Warren, Commodore, 85. 

Washington Conference (1921), 335, 473. 

Washington, Treaty of (1871), 420. 

Washington, George, 87, 125. 

Waterboer, Griqua chieftain, 359. 

Waterloo, battle of, 149. 

Watson, J. C, Australian statesman, 
396. 

Watts, James, inventor of steam engine, 
139. 

Weaving, as a cottage industry, 137 ; im- 
provements in, 137-38. 

Weihaiwei, lease of, 297, 335. 

Wellesley, Arthur, see Wellington, Duke 
of. 

Wellesley, Lord, Governor-General of 
India, 187-88. 

Wellington, settlement of, 255; death of 
Wakefield at, 174. 

Wellington, Duke of, 189. 

Wesleyan Missionary Society, 282 n. 

West Africa, see Africa, West. 

Western Australia, early history of, 245- 
47; grant of self-government to, 285, 
386; and federal constitution, 394. 

Western Pacific, High Commissioner of, 
397, 399. 

West Indies, early British activity in the, 
48-55; value of the British, 103; trade 
of French, with American colonies, 118; 
capture of Danish, by British, 156. 
See also under individual islands. 

Westminster Review, quoted, 164. 

Whale Bay, 296. 

White, John, 32. 

Whitelock, General, 158. 

Whitney, Eli, inventor of cotton gin, 
138. 

William, Fort, 95. 

William the Conqueror, 3-4. 

William and Mary, 36-37; colonial ad- 
ministration under, 109. 

William II, of Germany, telegram of, to 
Kruger, 369. 

Williams, Roger, 44. 

Willoughby, expedition of, to Russia, 
29. 

Wilmot, Governor of Tasmania, 244. 

Windward Islands, government of, 440. 

Winter, Sir James, Prime Minister of 
Newfoundland, 426. 

Wolfe, General, 88. 

Woman suffrage, in New Zealand, 381; 
in Australia, 390. 

Wood, Capt. Benjamin, 61. 

Wood, William, The Great Advantage of 
Our Colonies, cited, 101. 

Wool, importance of, in English mediae- 



XXVI 



INDEX 



val commerce, 12; production of, in 
Australia, 242. 

Woolen industry, antagonism of, to In- 
dian goods, 102. See also Textile in- 
dustry, Sheep. 

World War, see War of 1914. 

Worstead, 12. 

Writs of assistance, 122. 

Yeardley, Sir George, 41. 



Yorktown, surrender of Cornwallis at, 

126. 
Younghusband, Colonel, in Tibet, 307. 

Zamindars, in India, 186. 

Zanzibar, British control of, 296, 432, 

441. 
Zionists, and Palestine, 456. 
Zululand, 296, 365. 
Zulus, 263, 271, 360-61. ' 



31+77-7 



